How to Chase a Late Payment as a UK Tradesperson
Late-paying customers are the single biggest cash-flow killer for small trade businesses. This guide walks through the escalation ladder — friendly reminder, formal Letter Before Action, statutory interest, small claims court — with the timing and exact wording UK tradies should use at each step.
The painful truth about late payments is that the right answer is almost always to start chasing earlier than feels comfortable. Most overdue invoices aren't malicious — they're forgotten, misfiled, or sitting in an inbox someone doesn't check often. The first follow-up matters more than the wording: a polite nudge on day 31 collects almost as much money as the rest of the escalation ladder combined.
This guide is the escalation playbook for UK tradespeople: when to send the friendly reminder, when to switch to a formal Letter Before Action, what interest you can legally charge, and at what point small claims court becomes the right move. All the timings assume a standard 30-day payment term — adjust accordingly if you wrote shorter or longer terms onto the invoice.
Day 0–30: the payment period
While the invoice is still within its payment window, don't chase. Bombarding a customer with reminders before the due date trains them to ignore your messages and signals that you're nervous. The exception: if you offered an early-payment discount (e.g. "2% off if paid within 10 days"), a friendly reminder on day 7 to flag the deadline is fine — that's a sweetener, not a chase.
Day 31–37: the first friendly reminder
The day after the invoice is overdue, send a low-friction reminder. Tone should be neutral — assume the customer forgot, not that they're deliberately stalling. Most customers pay within 48 hours of this first reminder. A workable template:
“Hi [name], just a quick reminder that invoice [number] for £[amount] became due yesterday. The payment link is still live: [link]. Or you can pay by bank transfer to [sort code / account number] using [number] as the reference. Let me know if there's any issue with the invoice. Thanks, [your name]”
Send via the same channel the invoice was sent on. If it went over WhatsApp, reply in the WhatsApp thread — customers are more likely to act on a notification on the channel they already use. Email reminders are easier to ignore.
Day 45: the second, slightly firmer reminder
If the first reminder went unanswered, send a follow-up two weeks later with a slightly firmer tone. Reference your right to charge interest under the Late Payment Act (even if you don't intend to use it yet — the citation alone often shifts payment behaviour):
“Hi [name], invoice [number] is now 15 days overdue (£[amount]). Under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 we have the right to charge statutory interest of 8% + Bank of England base rate on overdue commercial invoices, plus statutory compensation. We'd rather not — could you let me know when payment will be made? Payment link still live: [link]”
Day 60: the phone call
After two written reminders that have gone unanswered, the next escalation isn't another email — it's a phone call. A live conversation surfaces problems that text reminders never do: the customer is disputing the work, the invoice went to the wrong contact, the accountant is on holiday, the company is in financial trouble. Even a brief call usually unsticks the payment one way or another.
Keep the call brief and factual. "Hi, calling about invoice [number] from [date], which is now 30 days overdue. Wanted to check there isn't an issue and to confirm when payment will be made." If they push back on the work itself, document the conversation in a follow-up text or email: "Confirming we discussed [issue] today. As agreed, [next step]." This becomes evidence if you end up in small claims.
Day 60–90: the Letter Before Action
If the phone call didn't unstick it, the next formal step is a Letter Before Action (LBA). This is a written notice, sent by post or recorded email, that you intend to take court action if payment isn't made within a specified period (typically 14 days for commercial debts, 30 days for consumer debts under the pre-action protocol).
The LBA isn't a friendly nudge — it's the document a judge will look at if this ends up in court. It has to contain specific things:
- Your name and address (claimant).
- The customer's name and address (defendant).
- The amount owed (principal sum).
- Interest claimed (8% + Bank of England base rate from the original due date).
- Statutory compensation if commercial (£40 / £70 / £100 by invoice band).
- A clear statement that legal proceedings will be issued if payment isn't received by a specified date (the 'deadline').
- How they should pay — bank details and reference.
- A reasonable response period (14 days for commercial under the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims, 30 days for consumer under the same protocol).
Day 90+: small claims court
If the LBA deadline passes without payment or a substantive response, the next step is filing a claim. For amounts under £10,000, this goes through the Small Claims Track of the County Court. The process is designed to be usable without a lawyer.
- Online filing via gov.uk Money Claim Online (MCOL). Fee depends on the claim size: roughly £35 for claims under £300, scaling up to £455 for claims at £10,000.
- Once filed, the defendant has 14 days to respond. If they don't, you can apply for a default judgment — which is essentially a court order saying they owe you the money.
- If they respond and defend the claim, the court schedules a hearing. Most small-claims hearings are short (30 minutes to an hour) and informal.
- If you win, you can recover the court fee from the defendant. You can also claim some pre-action costs (postage, recorded delivery) but legal fees are not recoverable on the small claims track.
The honest reality is that around 80% of small claims defendants don't even respond — they get the court paperwork, realise it's serious, and either pay or settle. The threat of the court action does more work than the action itself.
When to give up
Not every invoice is worth chasing through small claims. Three situations where the right answer is to write it off:
- The customer is a limited company that's clearly going under or has already gone into liquidation. You become a creditor in the insolvency process — get yourself on the list (free) but your odds of recovering anything are slim and the timeline is months.
- The amount is small (under £200) and the customer is well-organised but disputing in good faith — the time you'll spend in dispute resolution outweighs the recovery.
- You've made a procedural mistake on the invoice or the work that would be exposed in court (missing required fields, missing safety certificates for gas/electrical work, missed building control). Court is the wrong venue for fixing your own paperwork.
The prevention layer
The escalation ladder above is the cure. The prevention is just as important:
- Get a deposit on bigger jobs. 10–30% upfront on anything £1,000+ filters out the customers who can't or won't pay.
- Same-day invoicing. The single biggest predictor of fast payment is short time between work done and invoice sent.
- Clear payment terms on every invoice. "Payment due within 30 days; late payments may attract interest at 8% + Bank of England base rate under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998." Most templates miss this.
- Bank details on every invoice. Customers pay by bank transfer faster than they pay by anything else when the details are right in front of them.
- Automatic reminders. Reminders at 7, 14, and 21 days of overdue are the standard rhythm. Tools like Wedge fire them automatically; without them, 80% of tradespeople forget to chase.
- Stripe payment link as well as bank details. Customers who want to pay by card on a card-on-file basis (common for letting agents) can do so without you doing anything more.
Where Wedge helps
Wedge sends invoices over WhatsApp with a Stripe payment link, automatic reminders at 7, 14, and 21 days overdue, and a clear escalation path. Customers can pay by card in WhatsApp itself, by bank transfer using the details on the invoice, or by Pay-by-Bank. The system does the first half of the escalation ladder for you, which is the half most tradespeople skip and where the most invoices get paid.
For anything that escalates past the reminders, the wording in this guide is what you need. Save the friendly-reminder template, the firmer-reminder template, and the Letter Before Action template — they get reused. And keep good records: when you invoiced, when you chased, what was said. Good records turn a small claims hearing from a 'his-word-against-mine' argument into a tidy paper trail.
