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Adding debt recovery costs to Money Claim Online form

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6 years 9 months ago #2048 by carriegee
Although this is say enough to add when sending a late payment statement, there's no field to add it on the MCOL claim form. And, presumably, you can only add interest on the original amount owed from the due date, not on the amount + the debt recovery cost?

So, is it only possible to demand and include debt recovery costs before starting a claim?

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6 years 9 months ago #2049 by james@cpa.co.uk
You can add the Late payment compensation in the body of your claim. so if your invoice is £400 then you claim £440 breaking down the claim in the box.

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6 years 9 months ago #2050 by carriegee
Thank you very much. Just so I'm clear:

- In the 'Claim amount' in the fields above the short statement field I need to state, for example, £400.
- My short statement should include a sentence to say I'm adding late payment compensation of £40.
- In the 'Amount claimed' beneath that, I need to state a total of £400 + interest amount + debt recovery fee? The court fee is then added automatically.

I also meant to ask: my client is a sole trader and provided a UK business address on my signed terms, which is also on his website as his business' London HQ. I have since discovered is a virtual office. I can't trace a UK residential address and he is currently living in Spain but without a fixed address. I hope the virtual office address will be acceptable to MCOL as point 6.8 in the Service of Documents states:

'(a) the defendant may be served with the claim form at an address at which the defendant resides or carries on business within the UK or any other EEA state and which the defendant has given for the purpose of being served with the proceedings;'

Have you encountered this situation before?

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6 years 9 months ago #2052 by james@cpa.co.uk
I believe you need to put £440 in the amount claimed and the the interest is entered separately.

However the bigger issue is that you do not know where your debtor is.

Until you know where he is, the claim is uncollectable. You need first to find his address.

You could serve the action against his virtual office but you won't be able to execute the debt

I don't know the size of the debt and whether it would be cost effective to instruct trace agents but it doesn't sound good.

We always encourage our clients to find out everything they can about their customers before trading with them. A home address is key.

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6 years 9 months ago - 6 years 8 months ago #2053 by carriegee
I understand - and I was rather stupid for accepting that the address was a proper office, which he led me to believe when we discussed where he was in London. I always check limited company addresses but took this sole trader address in good faith.

It's not a huge debt, thankfully. At best, it may prompt him to cough up.

I know I can't enforce various options but I might still be able to issue a court order to attend for questioning, which I've done before and usually shakes up naughty payers.

Fingers crossed ...

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6 years 8 months ago #2072 by j.salmon@cpa.co.uk
We wish you the best of luck

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