A firm owes you money

If you think a firm owes you money

Do you think a firm owes you money? Perhaps you are in one of the situations described below.

A firm has failed to pay your professional fees.
A firm has either failed to account to you for money it has received, causing you loss and hardship, or you have suffered loss due to an individual's dishonesty.
You have read an advert, asking that you contact us.
You have received a letter from us.
You are a third party and believe a firm owes you money.

Professional fees

If you have professional fees outstanding (for example, agent or expert fees), we will consider non-payment if

you have a County Court judgment in respect of the fee, and
the judgment relates to the practice in connection with providing a legal service.

If you have a judgment against the firm or an individual regulated by us, you can report the matter to us.

If you are a barrister and are owed money as a result of an outstanding fee note, please contact the Bar Council. The Bar Council is able to report matters to us.

If you are an agent, expert or barrister, and the firm has been closed by us, you may be able to make an application to our compensation fund if the firm was in receipt of money specifically to discharge your fees. A decision by us to close a firm may be published.

Failure to account or dishonesty

We may be able to help you if you

have suffered loss because of an individual's dishonesty, or
are suffering loss and hardship due to the firm or regulated person's failure to account to you (for the money they have received).

You do not need to have been a client of the solicitor. The application is made to us.

Money due to you

We may hold money that belongs to you, because

you were a former client of a firm or beneficiary, and
we have exercised our powers to close the firm.

If we are holding money that belongs to you, we will try to account to you for that money.

Why might we hold the money?

Sometimes when we close a firm, we find its accounts have not been properly kept. If this is the case, it is difficult to decide who the money belongs to.

We work to resolve the situation by looking at the files, records and data that we have. You may have seen an advertisement, or we may have written to you about money we think we may hold for you. We will then consider your claim for money due to you (this is not a compensation fund claim).

You may have seen an advertisement asking clients of a particular firm to get in touch if they think the firm owes them money. You can respond to the advert by contacting us. We will then consider your claim for money due to you.

We have written to you

Please complete, sign and return the form we sent you. Alternatively, download our post-intervention claim form (DOC 148K). We will then consider your claim for money due to you.

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