Late payment action recoups £1m debts

PEARSON Solicitors’ corporate and commercial team has helped a client recover outstanding debt of £1 million.

The legal firm, which has offices in Oldham, Hollinwood and Ashton, has been recovering debts from as little as £300 to more than £50,000 for clients, many of them SMEs without in-house debt recovery teams.

“Small businesses in the North-West experience the greatest number of late payments in the UK,” said the firm’s Nicola Laurie, adding: “Many businesses are unaware of how much money they are owed and don’t have the resources to spend time managing outstanding payments.”

Late payment has become a serious issue across a number of sectors and is a topic for political debate.

Debbie Abrahams, Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, has been running her award-winning “Be Fair — Pay on Time” campaign for some years, while the previous coalition Government had been working on a late payment reporting plan to force large firms to report their payment records every three months.