January 2017 – Newsletter

2017 – New Year – New Procedures – Reduce your bad debts

Having good Credit Control Procedures can make the difference between the success or failure of a business.

Start the New Year with a look at how you run your credit control.

Do you……

Know who your customer is:-

• Are they a Sole Trader, Limited Company, Public Limited Company?
• Have you seen their Letterhead?
• Checked their Company Registration Number (where appropriate)?
• Checked the Company Registration Number relates to the name your customer has given.
• Taken note of a variety of ways of contacting them?
• Completed a credit check?

Inform your customer prior to doing business of your Terms of Payment:-

• Have you given your customer a credit limit?
• Are your Terms of Payment made clear?
• Do your Terms state that when an invoice becomes overdue all invoices become due?
• Have you informed your customer how their invoices will be delivered?

Give reminders promptly:-

• A monthly statement is a good way of reminding your customer what is outstanding.
• Inform your customer as soon as an invoice is due.

Take Prompt Action:-

• If all else fails act quickly – a more recent debt is easier to prove and recover.
• Complete our Instruction form and let us do the rest.

Letter Before Action Form – Lane & Co. Solicitors

Simple Procedures can produce significant responses

 Leave your Debts in our Capable Hands

Private Landlords please take note! – Tenancy Deposit Schemes:

What is a tenancy deposit scheme?

A landlord under an assured shorthold tenancy (AST) must protect a tenant’s deposit by using an authorised tenancy deposit scheme (TDS) operated by an approved scheme administrator. A TDS has two main objectives:

• To ensure that, when a tenant pays a deposit, it will be protected and returned to the tenant at the end of the AST, except when the landlord has a legitimate claim on it.
• To avoid using the courts to resolve disputes between landlords and tenants.

There are two types of TDS:

• A custodial TDS requires a landlord to pay its tenant’s deposit to a scheme administrator, who holds the deposit until the tenancy ends.
• An insurance TDS where the landlord retains possession of the deposit, but secures it by paying a fee and insurance premiums to the scheme administrator.

What are a landlord’s obligations under a TDS?

Within 30 days of receipt of the deposit a landlord must:

• Comply with the “initial requirements” of the TDS.
• Give the tenant and anyone else who paid the deposit (relevant person) certain prescribed information. This information should be provided directly to the tenant (and any relevant person). It is not sufficient to merely identify the TDS and let the tenant make their own investigations.

What sanctions are available if a landlord fails to fulfil their obligations under a TDS?

If a landlord fails to comply with the TDS:

• The tenant (or relevant person) can apply to court even if the tenancy has ended and the landlord will then have to pay a penalty to the tenant or relevant person. This penalty will be from one to three times the deposit.
• The landlord will not be able to get the property back simply by giving two months’ notice to the tenant. The landlord will have to take additional steps in order to regain possession of the property.

Landlords, if you take a deposit, please ensure you comply with the above legal requirements to protect your position.

For more information or if you have any other property related matters, please click on the link Property Litigation Solicitors – Lane & Co. Solicitors or contact our Property LitigationTeam on 01922 700 730.

A Reminder – Your Equality Responsibilities – The Equality Act 2010

Just to remind all businesses of their duties to members of the public when providing them with goods, services or facilities.

Members of the public who access a business’ goods, services or facilities are protected on the basis of certain characteristics. They are protected both when requesting a service, goods or facility and during the course of being provided with it.

The protected characteristics are currently:

• Age.
• Disability.
• Gender reassignment.
• Pregnancy and maternity.
• Race.
• Religion or belief.
• Sex.
• Sexual orientation.

The anti-discrimination rules vary according to the protected characteristic. There are also several key exceptions. For example, age discrimination exemptions include age based concessions and age restricted sales.

The following forms of discrimination are all prohibited

‘Direct Discrimination’– A business must not treat a person worse than someone else on the basis of a protected characteristic.

‘Indirect Discrimination’ – A business must not apply a policy, criteria or procedure to everyone that would particularly disadvantage a group of people with a protected characteristic.

‘Harrassment’ – A business must not harass a member of the public. Harassment is any unwanted conduct relating to a protected characteristic that has the purpose or effect of violating a member of the public’s dignity or creates a hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for that individual.

‘Victimisation’ – A business must not treat someone badly or victimise them because they have:

• Complained about discrimination.
• Helped someone else complain.
• Done anything to uphold their own or someone else’s rights under discrimination law.

‘Discrimination arising from a disability’ – A business must not treat a disabled person unfavourably because of something arising from or in consequence of their disability, where the business cannot show that what it was doing is objectively justified.

‘Failure to make reasonable adjustments’ – Businesses have a duty to make reasonable adjustments for all disabled people, whether it has disabled customers or not. The business should review how accessible its services are to disabled people, rather than waiting for a disabled person to encounter a problem.

Breaching Discrimination Law can lead to compensation claims.

The court can order a business to compensate an individual for any financial loss caused by the discrimination. However, many claims are limited to claims for injury to feelings as no other financial losses have been caused – guideline figures from September 2016 are expected to be as follows:-

• Lowest bracket £816 to £8,160
• Mid-bracket     £8,160 to £24,487
• Highest bracket £24,487 to £40,811

Lane and Co – Christmas Dress up day…….

The Charities we wanted to support at Christmas were MNDA – the Motor Neurone Disease Association and St Giles Hospice.

Staff donated for our ‘dress down’ / ‘dress up’ day.

The best dressed members of staff obviously had to go to Poppy as Santa and John in his ‘Santa’s Little Helper’ outfit, I am sure you will agree he certainly looked the part.