Arrears must be recovered quickly to avoid problems with cash flow and block management. If one person doesn’t pay, everyone suffers. We collect many debts within a few weeks of our instruction and we collect most undefended debts within three months.
Worry about solicitors costs is very common amongst managing agents and their clients. Because they are already out of pocket, the last thing they need when dealing with arrears is further cost. In some cases there may not be anything in the pot in any event or there may be plenty in the pot but there is a worry that there will not be if you take legal action against your debtors. These things put managing agents and their clients off instructing solicitors and the problem doesn’t get better it gets later.
With the Swaine Allen No Legal Costs Worry Guarantee you never need to worry about your legal costs. There will be no surprises. In most cases we wait for them and recover them directly from the debtor. Where this is not possible we inform you in advance of any costs that you will have to pay and you make a business decision whether to proceed or not. So if it doesn’t make commercial sense to pay the costs you tell us not to proceed. You will have nothing to pay and you will have had the benefit of our expert assessment of your case free of charge.
Click here to see further details of our costs
Service charge and ground rent recovery is a complex area of law. Managing agents and their clients need specialist solicitors. We are experts in the legal issues and procedure relating to arrears recovery so our clients and their agents are always guided by the best advice.
Whilst speed of recovery is of paramount importance it must not be achieved at the expense of departing from the professional approach that managing agents and their clients have to all other aspects of block management. A professional approach builds rather than damages matters that are of vital importance to them including their ongoing relationships with the property owners, their reputation, standing and brand. Our professional approach maintains ongoing relationships wherever possible and ensures that reputation standing and brand are built rather than eroded.
Everyone has experienced initially getting a good service and then this dwindling over time. Managing agents and their clients need the service they receive to adapt, develop and improve in response to their needs, not to deteriorate. We take client service very seriously. Our operations partner Richard Swaine is the point of contact for all our clients, new and existing and he will only delegate parts of this function when the client is comfortable with this and when it is appropriate to do so.
To managing agents and their clients arrears are arrears. Whilst they can appreciate the different challenges that are faced in terms of recovery depending on the tenure of the property and whether or not it is mortgaged they need a solution not an exclusion. We collect on leasehold and freehold properties whether or not they are mortgaged.
Regular updates and systems that complement their own are vital to managing agents and their clients. Of equal importance is security of data and money. Breaches can be catastrophic. We continually monitor, develop and improve our secure IT-based systems and procedures. Our specialist team utilise a case management system which (as with all our systems and procedures) is our servant, not our master. We recognise that one size does not fit all in terms of what our clients and their agents need. We work with them to ensure we deliver what they want and how they want it including:
reporting
how we are instructed and how we take instructions
method and frequency of payment of collected monies
the level of technical legal support required (we don’t require our clients or their agents to have any legal knowledge but many do and this is relevant to how we deliver our service)
If you are a customer of Swaine Allen Solicitors and we have contracted with you online you may be entitled to use the EU Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) Platform to assist in resolving any dispute with us. This service can be found at http://ec.europa.eu/odr.
Our email address is info@swaineallen.com.
Swaine Allen is a trading name of Lockings Legal Services Limited registered in England and Wales company registration number 09244568 Lockings Legal Services Limited is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA ID number 626081). All telephone calls are recorded for training and quality purposes. A list of our directors is available for inspection at our office.
