Welcome to The Guild of Residential Landlords

Welcome to the debt collection service provided by the Guild.

If you have any debts for rent arrears and/or damages, that are no older than six years old, you can use the service provided by the Guild in association with arc-collections.

Costs

• The service is offered on a no win/ no fee basis.
• On successful collection, they will charge you 12.5% of the amount collected. There is no initial administration fee.
• If a tenant or guarantor trace is required, there is an admin fee of £30, plus if the trace is positive, a further £50 is payable by you.
• If you require the collection agency to take the debtor to court, they charge an £80 admin fee plus the court fees. Additional fees may be applicable if attendance at court is necessary. However, members of the Guild probably don't need to use the collection agency court service as we can assist you with taking court proceedings yourself thus only incurring the court fees.
• Please note: On the arc-collections website, it states the commission rate to be "from"10%. However, the commission rate depends on amount of debt and length of time since the debt accrued. In fact, the commission rate is anywhere between 10 and 20%. We have negotiated for our members a flat rate of 12.5% on all debts irrespective of size and age.In addition, we have negotiated reduced rates for the tracing fees.

How far back can I claim a debt for?
Six years

Debt Placement Form
The all new debt placement form allows you to enter all the necessary information which is then returned to the guild by email. In addition, at the same time you can attach to the same email any other relevant information. For example if you record rent schedules in excel, the file can simply be attached, or alternatively, the tenants details can be scanned from
the application form and attached to the same email.

When we get the emailed form, we pass on your information by email to arc-collections who then deal with it from there. If they require further information, they will contact you as appropriate. They promise to "contact them on receipt of your email and confirm we have received their instructions."

Information
The level of information you provide is relative to the case. If you have a forwarding address for the tenant, then the information only needs to be this address and debt information.If you don't know where the tenant has moved to, quite simply the more information you can provide, the better. There is an admin fee of £30 to trace a tenant and an additional £50 if the trace is successful. (Therefore if the tenant is not found you will still need to pay £30.00).

Do I need a County Court Judgement before I use this service?
No.
However, if the tenant disputes the money is owed, there is little that a debt collector can do without a County Court Judgement.

The Guild can help you with commencing legal proceedings against a tenant (or former tenant).

Can I send the information by post/fax?
No. The service is available on-line only.

Click here for the Word (.doc) version of the debt placement form

Click here for the Rich Text Format (should work on all word processors) version of the debt placement form