Price transparency for debt recovery for businesses (up to £100,000)
Recovery of debts of up to £100,000 owed to businesses. The rule's published-pricing duty covers the undisputed route: letter before action, issuing a claim, and entering judgment where no defence is filed. If your firm's website offers this service, Rule 1 of the SRA Transparency Rules sets out exactly what price information the site must publish.
Sources last verified: 2026-08-14.1 — official SRA links are cited in each section.
Does this apply to your firm?
Any regulated firm marketing debt recovery to business clients on its website. Because most instructions start undisputed and some turn contested, the page has to be explicit about which of those two worlds its figures belong to.
What must be published for debt recovery for businesses (up to £100,000)
- Your fees for the undisputed pathway — commonly a scale by debt value covering the letter before action, issuing proceedings, and requesting judgment in default.
- A clear statement that the figures apply to undisputed debts, and that if the debtor disputes the claim or files a defence, the matter becomes contested litigation charged on a different basis (state that basis, e.g. hourly rates).
- Whether VAT applies to your fees — and, since business clients often recover VAT, whether your figures are shown exclusive of it.
- That interest and compensation may be claimable under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act, and whether your fee covers claiming them.
- Who carries out the work and their experience and supervision.
- Key stages and timescales: letter before action and the response period, issue of claim, judgment in default — and typical end-to-end time when the debt stays undisputed.
Official source: SRA — Transparency in price and service guidance · Sources last verified: 2026-08-11
Disbursements to describe
Disbursements are costs payable to third parties that your firm handles on the client's behalf. The rule expects them described and priced (or ranged) — for this service that typically means:
- Court issue fees, which scale with the value of the claim — publish the scale or a link plus worked examples at typical debt values.
- Enforcement costs after judgment (writs and warrants of control, charging orders), each with its own court fee.
- Companies searches and tracing agents' fees where used.
For every disbursement, say whether VAT applies to it — mixing VAT-inclusive fees with VAT-silent third-party costs is one of the most frequent findings on otherwise careful pages.
Common gaps on live sites
Only the £X letter-before-action price published, with the cost of actually issuing and enforcing left blank.
No dividing line between undisputed and disputed matters — the single most important price fact for this service.
Court fees folded invisibly into a “from” figure so neither the fee nor the disbursement is checkable.
Enforcement treated as included when it is charged separately.
These are patterns seen across real firm websites — none of them implies bad faith. Pages get edited, calculators break, and requirements written for lawyers get trimmed by marketing. That's an argument for checking the live page regularly, not for blame.
Is your debt recovery for businesses (up to £100,000) page still saying what it should?
FirmProof runs automated monitoring checks against your live public pages every week and keeps dated evidence of what was found. Start with the free scan — no account, one scan a day.
Check your own site