Beating The Debt Recovery Storm

David Green, Managing Partner at MTA Solicitors gives advice to small businesses on cash flow and keeping the debts at bay in these tough economic times:

If you’re a small business whose survival is dependent on regular cash flow, the urgency of recovering overdue bills is critical.

Recovering debt as quickly and as smoothly as possible is one of the key aspects to staying afloat in a difficult market. Taking the right steps from the outset will allow you to maximise the monies which are rightly owed to you without damaging your business relationships.

Many businesses find it hard to chase a customer for debts as there is a risk that attempts to recover them will be seen as aggressive.  

But it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the customer has failed to pay you the money they owe, and you simply can’t afford this issue to jeopardise the financial stability of your own business.

A solution for recovering overdue monies needs to be one that can be put into action swiftly to give you every chance of getting your money back at the lowest cost to you.

The first step towards recouping outstanding debts is to ensure that your terms and conditions are clear regarding payment. If you are going to use an external company to collect overdue payments make your intentions clear to your customer so there can be no misunderstandings.

As the payment terms near their end a ‘friendly’ phone call can often result in payment, and if not you have the option to follow this up in writing to instigate a gentle reminder of the outstanding payment due and, to re-emphasise your payment terms.

What has to be avoided is continual phone calls and letters chasing debt as this wastes your time and stops you from concentrating on new business.

Enlisting the help of a recovery agent or a professional solicitor at the early stages could be beneficial in terms of saving you time and money in the long term. These debt recovery companies or specialist solicitors will act on your behalf to recover the debt and although often effective some of the charging models require such firms to be aggressive, which can damage relationships.

In my view, the most efficient debt recovery model is to use a combination of all the various options but not be afraid to allow those representing you to take the action that is necessary to recover the debt.

It is always advantageous to recover a debt without resorting to litigation as costs are often not recoverable unless the unpaid amounts exceed £5000, and you will be expected to cover such costs.

A law firm with the right experience will know how to manage a case in the long run, saving you money and recovering your debts more efficiently. It is important to choose a firm which has efficient case management systems and an impressive recovery record.

Debt Recovery can become very complicated and expensive and choosing the wrong company to represent you may result in processes that sour relationships, costs you don’t expect and recoveries not meeting your expectations.

David Green is Managing Partner MTA Solicitors LLP

www.mtasolicitors.com

See Positive Collections: http://www.positivecollections.co.uk/ for a cost effective online debt recovery process.

New Family Law Solicitor Service at The LawStore

Emma Peart is a Solicitor who specialises in Family Law and Litigation. She runs a 'drop-in' Family Legal Clinic everyday at The Law Store, in The Glades in Bromley. As well as divorce Emma can also help with co-habitation agreements and pre-nuptial agreements along with a range of other family law issues. No appointment is needed. The LawStore is run by MTA Solicitors LLP, and is a new way to receive legal advice and services.



Emma Peart - Solicitor Law Store

Issues of a family nature can be extremely stressful. LawStore aim to assist in many areas and to make the process of resolving family issues as straightforward and pressure free to clients as possible.

Family Law Solicitor, Emma Peart explains how she can offer assistance in the following:

• Cohabitation and Pre-Nuptial Agreements: Advice as to how you may best protect your assets prior to cohabiting or entering into a marriage or civil partnership in case the relationship breaks down. We can fully advise on and draft cohabitation and pre-nuptial agreements which can assist preventing a former partner’s entitlement to your assets should the relationship break down.
• Ending a marriage or civil partnership: We can assist in formally ending a marriage through completing the relevant application for a divorce/civil marriage dissolution to the relevant court, or assisting you to complete the relevant documentation to agree to or contest an application to end the marriage by your partner. In the case of a divorce, we therefore could assist you in completing the relevant documentation from the initial divorce petition to decree nisi and decree absolute.
• Residence/contact issues for children: During the breakdown of a marriage/civil partnership contact and residence of any children will have to be dealt with. We can assist in completing the relevant documentation to resolve such issues. Should you and your ex-spouse be in agreement in relation to residence and contact of the children, this can be a simple case of completing a statement of arrangements for the children form and filing this in the divorce proceedings. Should you not be in agreement with the arrangements for the children, we can assist in helping you to mediate and reach an agreement that you and your ex are happy with. Should the issue be one of dispute at this stage, we can then assist with any necessary court proceedings to determine residence and contact.
• Financial Issues after a separation: When couples separate, whether ending a marriage, civil partnership or simply a co-habitation, there are normally property and financial issues to consider. We are able to advise in all aspects in this area. We can assist in negotiating a settlement and making the agreement binding by way of a consent order. Failing this, we can assist in financial settlement proceedings at Court. This will include complying with the courts timetable in relation to the exchange and examination of each party’s assets by way of Form E and questionnaires and representation and the First Appointment and Final Directions Hearing to secure a court order regarding the distribution of finances should you and your ex-partner not be able to reach an agreement.

Changing of your name or your child’s name

We can assist in the procedure for changing you or your child’s name legally. This will involve creating a legal document to officially change the name, and normally separate documentation for the passport agency. We can also help advise in whether the other parent will need to give consent.

Non-molestation orders

We can assist in gaining protection for a person who is facing the threat of violence. We can assess if there is enough justification to make an application to the court for an order that a person is not allowed to be within a certain distance of you or your home if you are in fear that they will be violent to you or they will threaten or intimidate you. Normally this will be in relation to an ex-partner or family member. Should you be successful, you will obtain an order directing that a person is not entitled to be within a certain distance of you your residence, and must not threaten violence or intimidate or harass you for a specific time period of normally about 2 years, after which time you would have to seek to renew the order.

Protection against a forced marriage

In some religions it is seen as customary for an arranged marriage to take place. Should a child or adult be in a position that they are being forced into a marriage, and it is against their will or they are not seen as having the legal age of consent, then we can assist in gaining protection for them by way of a court order to prevent the marriage and them being removed from the country for the marriage to take place if necessary.

The Law Store Bromley

Visit The MTA Solicitors LawStore

MTA LawStore is the brand new way to receive legal advice and services from Solicitors in Kent. There is no need to make an appointment, visit us today for a warm welcome and legal advice you can trust. You can pick up free legal advice leaflets. Run by MTA Solicitors LLP, The LawStore in Bromley, Kent provides the opportunity for anyone to have access to plain speaking, approachable Solicitors and promises:

• Same day advice
• Direct Lawyer contact
• No Hidden Costs

Visit one of our Daily Law Clinics for a Free 15 minute consultation. The LawStore is located in Regent Arcade,  The Glades. Bromley. Call 020 8466 5764 and find out how MTA LawStore can help you.

About time adoption laws were reviewed and given a shake up

Adoption Law Review

It is about time that adoption laws got a review and the Government took the delays in the system seriously.  The Government has now promised new laws to reduce the chronic delays endured by children waiting for adoption.

They will set out plans for a national register to match children with families who want to adopt, no matter how far apart they live.  At present, distance can be a huge hurdle to adoption.

There will also be moves to force councils to approve prospective adopters more quickly – perhaps in as little as three months.

Additionally it will become law that race, cultural background or language must not be a ‘significant or decisive factor’ in placing children with adoptive parents.

This will stop social workers leaving children in care because they cannot find a perfect ethnic match for them, even though other families could offer them a loving home.

In another change, prospective adoptive parents will be able to look after the child they have been matched with under a fostering arrangement before the court has made its final decision on whether adoption can go ahead.

A Bill will be tabled in the next session of Parliament and David Cameron has said speeding up adoption is ‘a priority’ for the Government.

This has got to be a good thing as waits of over two and a half years to get children out of care and adopted is too long. Consequently this is having a huge impact on the welfare of these children and society.

For further resources, this site provides some useful information:
Adoption.org.uk / adoption law

A Third Party in a Marriage? Beware of Social Networking Sites

Emma Peart, Family law Solicitor discusses the recent research regarding Social Networking sites and the breadown of marriages.

Social networking sites are being cited more and more commonly as one of the reasons why a marriage has fallen apart. Technology in modern society is perhaps giving people more opportunities to contact or stay in contact with ex-partners or members of the opposite sex.
The initial research carried out by Divorce-Online. co.uk, incredibly, cites that 1 in 3 divorces link social websites to being a cause of the breakdown of the marriage.
This statistic can be seen to follow social networking's rise in publicity perhaps,

given that there has been an increase of 13% usage since 2009.

So why have social websites effected so many marriages?
The survey done by Divorce-Online states that it is generally contact that their spouse is having with a member of the opposite sex (generally in an inappropriate manner) on these sites that causes problems. However those surveyed have also stated that comments by their spouse about them or friends commenting on the spouse’s behaviour also led to conflict.

The popularity of online social networking is certainly fuelling the breakdown of marriage, and this recent research shows that 'cyber-straying' is becoming more and more common. If you are keeping anything from your spouse it is also much easier to find these things out if you are communicating with others via online networking sites and more and more divorce cases are using comments on websites by their spouse as evidence of unreasonable behaviour.


It will remain to be seen if people learn their lessons and start to keep their relationships off the cyber highways or whether this situation will actually get worse as more and more people use online networking.


Emma Peart is a Solicitor who specialises in Family Law and Litigation. She helps to run a 'drop-in' Legal Clinic at The Law Store, The Glades in Bromley. No appointments needed. The Law Store is run by MTA Solicitors LLP, and is a new way to receive legal advice and services.

Divorce On The Rise

Divorce and Family Law Solicitors

For the first time in a number of years divorce rates increased in the year 2010.

The statistics from the Office for National Statistics(ONS) reveals that the number of completed divorces in England and Wales in 2010 was 119,589, an increase of 4.9 per cent since 2009, when there were 113,949 completed divorces. This gives a rising divorce rate to 11.1 divorcing people per thousand married population from 10.5 in 2009.

The number of divorces in 2010 was highest among men and women aged 40 to 44, a slight increase from the previous year.

Almost a fifth of men and women who divorced in 2010 had had a previous marriage end in divorce.

Speculation is that the economical problems have caused greater financial problems for couples, who have struggled to get over the worsening problems over the last few years. And it seems the Christmas period may be the final straw with January statistically being the month for the most applications for divorce.

However, it seems that generally people have not been put off the idea of marriage. The statistics of couples divorcing in 2010 show that nearly a fifth of those divorcing has had had a previous marriage end in divorce.

If you are looking for approachable, straightforward legal advice MTA LawStore is the brand new way to receive legal advice and services from Solicitors in Kent. There is no need to make an appointment, you can visit them at the store for a warm welcome and legal advice you can trust. You can pick up free legal advice leaflets and attend one of the Legal Advice Clinics, including Wills and Probate, Family Law, Debt Recovery, Personal Injury and Conveyancing. Run by MTA Solicitors LLP, The LawStore in Bromley, Kent provides the opportunity for anyone to have access to plain speaking, approachable Solicitors and promises:

• Same day advice
• Direct Lawyer contact
• No Hidden Costs

Visit one of our Daily Law Clinics for a Free 15 minute consultation. The Law Store is located in Regent Arcade,  The Glades. Bromley. Call 020 8466 5764 and find out how MTA LawStore can help you.
Article by Emma Peart, Family Solicitor at MTA Solicitors LLP 

The muddied waters of Co-habitees’ entitlements to property

Property Law and Co-Habitation

The law surrounding co-habitation is extremely complex and technical and it really is impossible to condense in a way that is both understandable to a non-lawyer and precise or accurate enough to satisfy a lawyer.
The supreme court published a judgment this week about ex-cohabitees' entitlements to a share in their former home. It has been awaited up and down the country by ex- habitee’s and lawyers alike, whose cases all hinge upon the lengthy analysis of a long string of notoriously difficult case law. They were looking for a clear cut settlement but what they got was anything but straightforward (the full judgment on the supreme court website gives you an insight into its complexity

Supreme Court Judgement

The case concerned an ordinary couple: Patricia Jones and Leonard Kernott. They lived together, bought up their children together and owned a house together. When he left and the house failed to sell, Kernott bought his own home with a policy they cashed in. Jones carried on paying the mortgage, maintaining the house and caring for the children, with little child maintenance being paid. Fourteen years later, property values having gone up, he came back to claim his share in the property. The supreme court reinstated the original judge's decision that left him with only 10% of the property value. It has taken Jones and Kernott four courts and the same number of years to get to this simple outcome, with each subsequent court taking a different view. It might not have been so difficult if the court had been able to just look at all the circumstances and divide things fairly, as it can for married couples. But that's not something it can do with co-habitees.
There is a lot more to it than this brief summary but a few simple things can be taken from this ruling. Co habitation law will never be straightforward and different set-ups and circumstances will always make it complex to rule on.

Couples preparing to live together should take legal advice before they buy, take legal advice if they split up, and if they don't fancy being the next Jones v Kernott then either put intentions in writing in a deed of trust, or take the plunge and tie the knot!