How Woodstock Legal Services can use early intervention to achieve your desired result of a court settlement:
Introduction
It is a common misconception that all parties involved in litigation are waiting for their ‘day in court’. Not all litigated matters are heated. They’re rarely extremely contentious. Whilst this is not untrue for all cases, for lots of cases the prospect of issuing court proceedings and attending a trial is costly. It’s certainly time-consuming, and sometimes daunting! Instructing solicitors does not automatically mean ending up in court, and actually, it can be very helpful in achieving the opposite. Solicitors are often a neutral third party who can act on your behalf without the emotional attachment, which helps to move the case on efficiently and often can result in a settlement.
For the clients strapped for time
Recently, the debt recovery team at Woodstock have successfully settled a number of cases outside of court.
In one instance, proceedings had been issued. However, the overseas client was extremely busy. Therefore the idea of attending court at potentially short notice was becoming extremely stressful. In this matter, we actually received a trial date with only two days’ notice which we had to agree to vacate due to lack of time to prepare. After vacating the hearing date, we then discussed the merits of a settlement proposal with our client. After a lengthy negotiation with the Defendant, we reached an amicable settlement figure. For our client, the confirmation that he would now not have to spend time providing witness evidence or attending court was extremely valuable and therefore made the settlement very worthwhile.
For the client with limited enforcement options
We recently had a client passed over to debt recovery from the possession department. They had obtained a possession order and money judgment for circa £9,000.00. When this matter was passed over to the debt recovery department, instead of jumping straight into applications for enforcement, we wrote a letter to the Defendant and sent this to them via email. It was alongside an income and enforcement letter, inviting them to make an offer of settlement before we escalate to enforcement through the courts. We then received a response to our email within a matter of hours! Asking to arrange a telephone appointment to discuss a repayment plan.
On the next working day, we had agreed to a repayment plan and had a signed settlement agreement. As a result, we have saved our clients the additional costs of escalating to enforcement. And, potentially agreed a more efficient repayment plan than could have been achieved through the courts or through enforcement agents.
Conclusion
At Woodstock we really believe in taking a different approach to other firms and debt recovery agencies; We believe in communicating with debtors in a non-aggressive manner. By and large, it’s much better to try and understand their position and try and reach the best outcome for our client. In doing this, we achieve brilliant results for our clients. We assist debtors by alleviating them of the stress of a county court judgment.
