How You Can Help Yourself before Chasing down a Debt
Posted on: 18 November 2016
If you have a dispute with somebody who you feel owes you money, then you may be considering legal action. You may feel as if you are in a very strong position but are not sure how you should proceed.
Identifying the Problem
In many situations such as this, one of the main reasons why the debt has been not been fulfilled is due to an absence of communication. Fundamentally, this could mean that you're not able to locate the person who owes you the money, but you do need to do as much work as you can in order to rectify this first. Why is this important?
What's the Process?
In order for legal proceedings to be taken against a debtor, documents need to be "served" first. This involves a solicitor drafting up a claim against the individual, together with a statement. These documents then have to be filed at your local Magistrates Court. The next step, however, is to actually give these documents personally to the debtor, and typically your solicitor will engage somebody called a bailiff in order to do this.
Nothing Happens before Location
The important thing to remember is that the legal process does not actually start until the debtor has been served with notice that you intend to claim. So if you want this matter to progress as quickly as possible it's important to do as much work as you can first, in order to try and locate the party.
Formal Avenues
It is possible to conduct a number of different searches through different organisations in order to try and confirm a business or residential address for a debtor. These include registers of land or property, owners of motor vehicles, electoral commission registers and so on. It's not always the case that the individual will be included on one of these registers, though, and this is why some of the information that you provide could be beneficial in reducing the amount of time taken.
Searching Strategically
The chances are that you know quite a bit about the debtor which may not be in public record. For example, you may know some of their friends or other business acquaintances and can strategically and confidentially ask questions in order to gather some pointers. Social media sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn can be very fruitful in this respect.
Ongoing Research
The more you can do the better in helping your legal team to pinpoint the location of the debtor. Try and keep up with this research as well, as it may be necessary to serve additional papers during this process before it is all brought to a completion. To learn more, contact a lawyer.
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