Part Payment of Invoices

[Elvina Fooy]

We have a fair amount of probate / estate files, where interim bills are raised, there are not sufficient funds on client account to clear the whole invoice , should i be part paying the invoice or waiting till we hold funds on client account to clear the whole balance ?
Cheers

[James]

Provided a bill has been delivered to the executors and you are only transferring the amount on the client ledger, a part payment is acceptable.

In many probate matters, VAT will have been paid to HMRC long before estate funds begin to arrive, so transferring these payments can be important for firm cash flow.

You may wish to confirm with the matter handler that any secured liabilities and funeral expenses have been settled, as these rank ahead of legal fees in the statutory order of priority on insolvent estates which is considered best practice for dealing with all estates

[Graham Lamb]

Sort of similar to this topic so hope you don’t mind me jumping in on this. We have a client who owes us a fair amount for unpaid invoices, the client is paying in weekly instalments however just wanting to get your thoughts on how you would go about offsetting the payments in when transferring from client to office against the outstanding invoices (which includes both unpaid counsel fees and firm fees) What I’ve always done is pay counsel first then once they are paid off, offset further payments in from the client against the firms fees. I have a fee earner asking why we can’t offset the payments in initially against our fees first… I wouldn’t say there is a rule as such in the account rules about this but i think this is just good practice and that disbursements/expenses should be settled first before your own fees, would you agree? Thanks

[Author]

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