non-payer of late fees and breach of contract DO I SUE?

I have a post on a prior thread about a guy who sacked me without the statutory 1 month's notice. I have a commercial cleaning firm and was cleaning his office. He also refuses to pay late fees. He has been absolutely horrible with me and by breaching the contract has meant that my cleaner did not get transferred to the new company. She is a lovely girl and at 19 this was her very first job. He treated her like dirt and was so offhand she threatened to leave.
I have got a debt recovery agency involved which has cost me £120 in one off admin fees and now I have to pay an additional £53 as he is refusing to pay their charge of 15% of the debt plus vat. He is claiming we breached the contract by poor cleaning standards but I did most of it myself and worked one hell of a lot of unpaid overtime and I have never had complaints before.
He is refusing to pay £293.50 breach of contract fee and £30 of late payment penalties.
The debt collection agency have advised my only option now is the small claims court. Do I have a case? Should I go for it? I want to make a rationally minded decision, not a hot headed emotionally motivated decision as I am furious about this.

Hi Rosie,

That doesn't sound like a very good situation :(

Unfortunately when it comes to breach of contract no one on this board will be able to advise you without seeing the contract in question and knowing all the facts. Quite simply it would be foolhardy to even venture an opinion.

What concerns us is that the collection company in question have already charged you more than 50% of the money you are owed!

The problem is, you are owed £323.50 in total and you have already spent £173.00 in "pursuit" of the debt meaning that even if you now sue, you will actually only be recovering £150.50.

It will cost you £100 to issue proceedings and a further £22.00 to enter judgment. If the debtor still does not pay it is another £150 to instruct the bailiffs and they can not guarantee you will get paid.

Plus, what is your time worth? If your hourly rate is £8 and you spend 10 hours dealing with the case it will have cost you a further £80 in time.

The question would therefore seem to be, do you want to risk a minimum of £122 (but more likely to be £2-300) in an effort to recover £150?