For Roofers · England and Wales
The insurer paid out. It just did not reach you.
You did the work, the claim settled, and the money went to the policyholder. Where it stayed. You are now chasing a private individual who is genuinely convinced somebody else has already paid you.
What we do about it
We chase every overdue invoice in your name, add the interest the law already says you are owed, and escalate through a regulated firm when somebody takes the mick.
Or one debt as a 60-day trial, with nothing charged unless we get it back.
The one that actually stops you
You already know which invoice this is about.
Insurance work is the debt that defines roofing, and it is the one where the customer least feels like a debtor. They have had a difficult few months, the claim was stressful, and in their mind the insurer dealt with it. Then there is the storm job agreed at the kerb in November with no written terms, which is a real debt and a much harder one to prove.
Where you stand
The insurer is not your debtor. The customer is.
Not legal advice
Unless you were formally appointed by the insurer, your contract is with the policyholder. The claim settling is not the same as your invoice being paid, and the two get conflated constantly.
- A homeowner is a consumer: no statutory interest, and the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims applies before court.
- Where the customer is a business, a landlord company or a managing agent, the commercial rules and statutory interest apply instead.
- Written terms matter more in this trade than most, because storm work is so often agreed verbally at the door.
- Commercial roofing on a construction site usually falls under the Construction Act, with everything that brings.
We are not solicitors and this is not legal advice. Hound is credit control: we chase, we add the statutory interest and compensation the law already gives you, and we assemble the evidence. Anything that needs a letter before action, a claim or an adjudication goes to a regulated firm, on your instruction, and only after you approve it.
The bit almost nobody claims
A £6,000 invoice at 68 days is really £6,201.34.
Statutory interest runs at 11.75% a year on a commercial debt, plus fixed compensation per invoice, under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. On that invoice it is £201.34 on top, and it is yours, not ours. Most trades never claim a penny of it, because claiming it means writing the letter that says so and then meaning it.
How we chase for roofers
Same machine. Not the same letter.
Consumer roofing debt is chased gently and slowly, with every message approved by you before it goes out, because the alternative is a complaint rather than a payment. We never imply a power we do not have, and nothing we send pretends to be from a solicitor.
Start
Hand us the worst one and see what happens.
Nothing is charged unless we get it back. If we have recovered nothing by day 60 we cancel it ourselves and you are charged nothing at all.