Debt Recovery Letters

Debt Collection Letter Templates

We offer a range of individual letter templates designed to facilitate an effective credit control system. The range of letters cover each key stage in communicating with a customer or client that has an invoice overdue.

The letters address the need to actively chase up late payments whilst also keeping a good rapport with the customer. It is common for businesses big and small to allow their account to become overdue. In most instances maintaining a procedure where you do not delay in reminding a customer will ensure that your invoices get paid promptly.

As well as selling individual letters, you can by the full pack which provides a small cost saving and lays the foundation for an effective three-letter process:

1. Payment Overdue Reminder;
2. Late Payment Chaser;
3. Final Demand For Payment.

If you are chasing for unpaid rent, then try our:

• Rent Arrears Letter; or
• Rent Final Demand Letter.

Using Our Debt Recovery Letters

Our template are created in Word format and can be used as many times as required once purchased.

You can view a sample of the templates by clicking the ‘preview’ button on the individual letter pages. All of our templates come with a full satisfaction guarantee. The letters have been drafted by an experienced commercial lawyer, our in-house lawyer and co-founder of this website Stephen.

This means you get piece of mind in knowing that they have been prepared by an expert.

Charging interest under the Late Payment of Commercial Debt Regulations 2013

Under the Late Payment of Commercial Debt Regulations 2013, interest can be claimed on all overdue business accounts. In our templates we do not mention this in the first later or second letter templates. It is referred to in the third letter – the final demand letter template which you would issue before issuing a claim for legal debt collection. The reason for this is that most overdue payments are an oversight or part of a practice of paying a little late on all accounts to facilitate cash flow.

In addition to interest, you can also charge a fixed amount per overdue invoice, depending on the original amount of the invoice:

• £40 if the invoice is up to £999.99.
• £70 if the invoice is at least £1000 and up to £9,999.99.
• £100 if the invoice is £10,000 or over.

What many people do not realise is that, where you have been running a business account with many invoices on it over several years and the customer is habitually late in paying, you can review all historic invoices dating back to 16 March 2013 (when the regulations came into effect) and charge this fixed sum on each of those invoices, even though they have since been paid.

If the customer is a consumer (not a business), then you cannot charge interest under these regulations. Once you issue court proceedings interest will start to run at the Court’s rate (normally 8% over the base rate).

Customers often respond badly to overly aggressive payment recovery approaches in the early stages of a late payment. For this reason we do not recommend referencing your legal right to claim interest on the overdue amount until this last stage.