How much does it cost to recover a building debt?

Two routes matter for a construction debt: the county court, whose entry fees are published, and adjudication, whose costs are not. They spend your money in different places, so take them one at a time.

The court route: published fees

The issue fee depends on the size of the claim. These figures are from the official fees page on gov.uk, read on 8 August 2026; check the page when you issue, because fees change:

• up to £300 claimed: £35
• £300.01 to £500: £50
• £500.01 to £1,000: £70
• £1,000.01 to £1,500: £80
• £1,500.01 to £3,000: £115
• £3,000.01 to £5,000: £205
• £5,000.01 to £10,000: £455
• £10,000.01 to £200,000: 5% of the claim
• over £200,000: £10,000

So issuing over an unpaid £8,000 final account costs £455; over £40,000, £2,000. Two honest footnotes: a hearing fee can follow later if the claim is defended to a hearing, and the gov.uk page names that without quoting figures, so neither will we; and fee remission (“help with fees”) exists for low incomes, which will rarely be you. The issue fee is generally added to what the losing defendant pays, and on business debts the fixed sums and interest under the Late Payment Act ride along with the claim.

The quiet good news about court: most documented debts never reach a hearing. A clean claim over a certified or notified sum, preceded by a proper letter before action, is usually paid or settled around the issue fee stage, and an undefended claim proceeds to judgment on paper.

The adjudication route: no fee table exists

Adjudication under section 108 has no published price list, and this page will not invent one. What is fixed is the structure:

• Each side carries its own costs. Win or lose, your time and any representative you hire are yours to pay: that is the standard position, and it is the single most important budgeting fact about adjudication.
• The adjudicator charges for their time, and commonly directs the losing party to bear that fee, though both parties remain on the hook to the adjudicator if the loser does not pay.
• It is fast, a decision in roughly 28 days, so the costs stop accumulating quickly, and speed is itself a cost control.

What that structure means in practice: adjudication rewards a party whose case is already documented, because the cost is mostly in assembling the case. A notified-sum claim where no notices were served is the cheap end, it is close to arithmetic. A full-blown valuation battle over ninety disputed lines is the expensive end, whatever forum it runs in. The wider mechanics are on the adjudication page.

Which route for which debt

Business client, documented debt: adjudication is usually the fit, fast, and built for exactly this. Business client, small clean debt: the county court’s fixed fees are modest and the protocol letter alone often collects. Private homeowner: the choice is made for you, a residential occupier is outside the Act (section 106), so there is no adjudication and the court fees above are your map, with the consumer protocol’s thirty days built into the timetable.

What to do this week

1. Price the recovery before you start: issue fee from the table above, plus a realistic allowance for your own time, against the debt and the debtor’s ability to pay. A judgment against an empty company is a certificate, not money.

2. Spend on the letter first: a proper letter before action is the cheapest step on the ladder and settles a striking share of documented debts by itself.

3. Check the current fees on gov.uk on the day you issue, not from this page, and not from memory.

Where the information stops

What a solicitor or a claims consultant would charge for your dispute is a quote, not a rule, and nothing here is a prediction of your costs. Before committing to adjudication on a contested account, get a fixed-fee view from a construction solicitor on the strength of the case, that conversation is the best money in this whole page.