Scottish collectors and solicitors recover unpaid B2B invoices from companies in Scotland. Scotland has its own courts and its own enforcement, called diligence, from the charge for payment to arrestment of bank accounts. No cure, no fee.
We act for your creditor.
Statutory interest and fixed compensation are claimed under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998.
Payment is required within 14 days. Failing this, proceedings will be raised in the Sheriff Court without further notice.
The first demand your debtor receives: under Scots law, from a collector in Scotland.
You approve every escalation. Nothing is filed without your written consent.
A collector in Scotland serves a formal demand. Statutory interest runs at the Bank of England base rate plus 8 percentage points, with fixed compensation of £40, £70 or £100 per invoice depending on its size.
Against a company, an unpaid statutory demand for £750 or more, left unpaid for 21 days, allows a winding-up petition. Solvent debtors usually pay before that point.
Smaller claims run under the simple procedure; larger claims under ordinary cause. Scottish solicitors handle the action in the Sheriff Court.
The court grants decree, the Scottish term for judgment. An undefended action usually reaches decree quickly.
A charge for payment gives the debtor 14 days to pay. After that, sheriff officers can arrest bank accounts, attach goods, and inhibit property. Recovered funds reach you within 48 hours of receipt.
No registration fee, no retainer. The success fee is agreed in writing before work starts and is due only on money actually recovered.
Court, notary, bailiff or counsel costs in Scotland are quoted in writing and incurred only with your approval.
Recovered amounts are remitted to your account within 48 hours of receipt, with a settlement statement. Every step is visible in Haka AI.
Yes. Scotland has its own legal system, courts and enforcement rules. Claims run in the Sheriff Court, judgments are called decrees, and enforcement is called diligence. An English judgment needs to be registered in Scotland before it can be enforced there.
The Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 applies in Scotland: statutory interest at the Bank of England base rate plus 8 percentage points, and fixed compensation of £40, £70 or £100 per invoice depending on its value.
After decree, a charge for payment gives the debtor 14 days to pay. If it does not, sheriff officers can arrest funds in bank accounts, attach goods, and register an inhibition that blocks dealings with the debtor's property.
Most commercial debts prescribe after five years in Scotland, after which the obligation is extinguished. Placing a case early protects your position.
No cure, no fee. The success fee is agreed in writing before work begins and is due only on amounts recovered. Court and solicitor costs, where a case needs them, are quoted and approved separately.
Not directly. An English judgment must first be registered in Scotland under the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982, by obtaining a certificate of its money provisions and registering it in the Books of Council and Session. Once registered, it is enforced by diligence like a Scottish decree. Our Scottish solicitors handle the registration.
A practical guide for B2B creditors, written by the Scotland desk. General information, not legal advice; every case is reviewed by local counsel before court action.
Scotland is part of the United Kingdom, shares its currency and its company register, and is nonetheless a separate legal jurisdiction with its own courts, its own procedure, and its own vocabulary. The Acts of Union preserved Scots law, and three centuries later a creditor who sues a Scottish company as if it were in Manchester will find that the court is the Sheriff Court, that the judgment is a decree, and that enforcement is called diligence and works differently at every step. A debt collection agency in Scotland exists because the differences are not cosmetic.
Scottish companies are registered at Companies House with an SC-prefixed company number, so the public record is the same one creditors use for England: directors, registered office, filed accounts, charges, and insolvency events. Scottish partnerships, unlike English ones, have legal personality of their own, which affects whom the creditor sues. Property is recorded in the Land Register of Scotland, maintained by Registers of Scotland, and the Register of Inhibitions records the inhibitions that block a debtor from dealing with heritable property. The desk checks all of these before the first letter is sent.
The formal demand is sent by a collector in Scotland, in English, to the debtor's registered office and to its finance director. It sets out the principal, the statutory interest, the fixed compensation, and a short deadline, and it states what follows: a statutory demand for a company, or proceedings in the Sheriff Court.
Interest is governed by the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, which applies throughout the United Kingdom, including Scotland. Between businesses, statutory interest accrues at the Bank of England base rate plus eight percentage points from the day after the due date. In addition, the creditor is entitled to fixed compensation for each late invoice: forty pounds for a debt under one thousand pounds, seventy pounds for a debt from one thousand to under ten thousand pounds, and one hundred pounds for a debt of ten thousand pounds or more. Where reasonable recovery costs exceed the fixed sum, the difference can also be claimed. Unlike England and Wales, Scotland has no pre-action protocol for debt claims that a business creditor must follow before suing, but a clear demand remains the practical and evidential first step.
Against a company, the sharpest lever is the statutory demand under the Insolvency Act 1986, which applies to Scottish companies. A creditor owed seven hundred and fifty pounds or more may serve a written demand in the prescribed form at the company's registered office. If the company neither pays nor secures or compounds the debt within three weeks, it is deemed unable to pay its debts, and the creditor may petition for it to be wound up. In Scotland, winding-up petitions are presented to the Court of Session or, for companies whose paid-up share capital does not exceed the statutory limit, to the Sheriff Court.
A statutory demand must not be used where the debt is genuinely disputed, and a company that receives one in respect of a disputed debt can apply to have the petition restrained. Against an undisputed debt, however, it is often decisive. A solvent company that has been ignoring invoices rarely lets a winding-up petition be advertised.
Most commercial debt claims in Scotland are raised in the Sheriff Court for the area where the debtor is based. Claims up to five thousand pounds use the simple procedure, introduced by the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, which is designed to be quick and inexpensive and can be conducted online through the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service's Civil Online system. Claims above that value proceed as ordinary cause actions. The Sheriff Court has exclusive competence for claims up to one hundred thousand pounds; higher-value claims may be raised in the Court of Session, whose Commercial Court offers active case management for complex commercial disputes.
A defender who does not lodge a response or a defense within the time allowed exposes itself to decree in absence, which is a full decree and can be enforced once extracted. Where a defense is lodged, the sheriff manages the case to proof (the Scottish term for trial) or to an earlier disposal where the defense is without merit. Proceedings are in English, evidence is documentary for most collection claims, and expenses (costs) generally follow success.
Enforcement of a decree is called diligence and is carried out by sheriff officers (or messengers-at-arms for Court of Session decrees) under the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987, the Debt Arrangement and Attachment (Scotland) Act 2002, and the Bankruptcy and Diligence etc. (Scotland) Act 2007. The sequence usually begins with a charge for payment, a formal demand served on the debtor giving fourteen days to pay. Once the charge expires unpaid, the creditor's officers can proceed.
The main forms of diligence against a company are arrestment, which attaches funds held by third parties, most importantly bank accounts, and sums owed to the debtor by its customers; attachment, which seizes corporeal moveable property such as vehicles, stock, and equipment for sale at auction; and inhibition, which is registered in the Register of Inhibitions and prevents the debtor from selling or charging heritable property in Scotland while the debt remains unpaid. Arrested funds are released to the creditor after a statutory period unless the debtor takes steps to challenge the arrestment. Against individuals, additional protections apply, including a protected minimum balance in bank arrestment and earnings arrestment through the employer, but these do not shield companies.
Scots law also allows diligence on the dependence: with the court's warrant, a creditor may arrest funds or inhibit property before decree, while the action is pending, where there is a real and substantial risk that the debtor will dissipate its assets. It is one of the strongest protective tools available to a creditor in the United Kingdom.
Corporate insolvency in Scotland follows the Insolvency Act 1986 as it applies to Scotland: compulsory or voluntary winding up, administration, and company voluntary arrangements, with some Scottish differences in procedure and in the officeholders' powers. Personal insolvency is sequestration under the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016, administered by the Accountant in Bankruptcy. Once a company enters liquidation or administration, individual diligence is generally stopped or its effect limited, and creditors must lodge claims with the officeholder. The desk monitors Companies House and the Edinburgh Gazette so that claims are lodged in time.
Because Scotland is a separate jurisdiction, an English or Northern Irish judgment must be registered in Scotland before it can be enforced there, under the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982, by obtaining a certificate of the money provisions from the originating court and registering it in the Books of Council and Session. The process is administrative rather than a fresh trial, but it is a step that creditors holding English judgments frequently overlook.
Judgments from outside the United Kingdom are recognized according to the applicable treaty. Since the United Kingdom's departure from the EU, the Brussels regime no longer applies. The Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements applies where the contract contains an exclusive jurisdiction clause, and the 2019 Hague Judgments Convention, which entered into force for the United Kingdom on 1 July 2025, provides a route for recognizing judgments from other contracting states in civil and commercial matters. Outside those conventions, a foreign judgment is enforced by raising a fresh action in Scotland founded on the judgment debt. The desk's Scottish solicitors advise on the route at the assessment stage.
Scotland does not have limitation in the English sense; it has prescription, which extinguishes the obligation itself. Under the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973, most commercial debts are extinguished by the five-year short negative prescription if no relevant claim has been made and the debtor has not relevantly acknowledged the debt within that period. Raising an action, serving a charge, or lodging a claim in an insolvency interrupts the period; a clear written acknowledgment by the debtor does the same. The 1973 Act has been amended by the Prescription (Scotland) Act 2018, with changes commenced in 2025 that affect when the period starts to run. Five years passes quickly. The desk flags every claim approaching the limit and secures a filing or an acknowledgment before it expires.
Every case placed with the Scotland desk starts with Companies House and a written assessment within twenty-four hours: the debtor's status, its filed accounts, any charges or insolvency events, and the recommended route. The demand goes out from a collector in Scotland, citing the 1998 Act. For a company that stays silent, the statutory demand follows. For a claim that must be litigated, Scottish solicitors raise the action in the Sheriff Court, seek decree in absence where the debtor does not defend, and instruct sheriff officers to carry out diligence, with the creditor approving every cost in advance.
No cure, no fee applies throughout. Court, solicitor, and sheriff officer costs are quoted and approved separately, and recovered funds are remitted within forty-eight hours of receipt. In Scotland, the creditor who knows that a decree is not a judgment and that diligence is not enforcement is the creditor who gets paid.
A Scottish collection action is won on documents. The desk assembles the contract or the accepted terms and conditions, the purchase orders, the invoices, the delivery notes or proof of performance, the statements of account, and the correspondence in which the debtor acknowledged the debt, promised payment, or failed to dispute an invoice. A written acknowledgment is doubly valuable in Scotland: it interrupts prescription, and it makes a defense hard to sustain. Where the contract contains a clause choosing English law or English courts, the desk's solicitors consider whether to raise the action in Scotland, where the debtor's assets are, or in England, then register the judgment in Scotland for diligence.
Scottish businesses generally prefer a negotiated plan to a court action, and the desk offers one before escalating. Every plan is reduced to writing as an acknowledgment of the debt with a schedule, signed on behalf of the company. The acknowledgment interrupts the five-year prescriptive period and provides the document on which decree can be sought quickly if the plan fails. Where the debtor is a subsidiary, the desk seeks a guarantee from the parent as a condition of the plan.
Creditors instruct English solicitors and English enforcement agents who have no standing north of the border. They obtain a County Court judgment and expect to enforce it in Glasgow without registration. They follow the English pre-action protocol for debt claims, which does not apply, and lose weeks. They wait for decree before considering diligence on the dependence, by which time the bank account has been emptied. And they treat prescription like limitation, assuming a five-year-old debt can still be sued on if the debtor does not raise the point; in Scotland the obligation has simply ceased to exist. The desk is built to avoid each of these.
An undisputed claim against a solvent Scottish company often resolves on the demand or after a statutory demand, within weeks. A simple procedure claim that is not defended can reach decree within a few months; an ordinary cause action that is defended should be planned in terms of a year. Diligence follows quickly once decree is extracted and the charge has expired. Court fees, solicitors' fees, and sheriff officers' fees are quoted in writing before any step and are partly recoverable from a losing debtor. Cosmopolite's success fee is agreed in writing before work begins and is due only on money recovered.
The rules described above are set out in the following sources on legislation.gov.uk: the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 and the Late Payment of Commercial Debts Regulations 2002; the Insolvency Act 1986; the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014; the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987, the Debt Arrangement and Attachment (Scotland) Act 2002, and the Bankruptcy and Diligence etc. (Scotland) Act 2007; the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016; the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982; and the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 as amended by the Prescription (Scotland) Act 2018. Court procedure and forms are published by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (scotcourts.gov.uk), company records by Companies House (gov.uk), and property records by Registers of Scotland (ros.gov.uk).
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