£75 + VAT - No Trace No Fee
24 - 48 Hour Turnaround
Real Time Information
Money Back Guarantee
Data Protection Compliant
By registering, you only have to give over your details once. If you are a law firm, landlord, letting agent, hire company or other UK Business, the registration process also means that we have enough information to set you up an account on 30 day terms (subject to status), rather than having to pay immediately.
We actively monitor all accounts we have with our Clients and as we are also geared up for volume trace enquiries, if we notice you are putting through an amount which would fall under this scheme, we will automatically lower the rates you pay for a positive trace. As a further incentive to take 2 minutes to register, we will also deduct £10 from your first trace.
Portland Investigations Limited are a specialist legal support and commercial investigations company that works for Law Firms, Landlords, Lettings and Estate Agents, Hire Companies and Businesses from small one man operations to large blue chip corporations.
Unfortunately we do not trace relatives or long lost friends for private individuals, but rather focus on the legal and commercial sector tracing debtors, shareholders, beneficiaries and even clients who have 'gone away'.
When it comes to companies, we can assist you in locating any UK company. With people however the realms of who we can search for are governed by the Data Protection Act 1998. We can trace Debtors, Witnesses, Shareholders, an absconding tenant, or someone against whom there are prospective proceedings. When we attempt to find people, we request that you provide us with a reason to do so that would be compliant under the Data Protection Act 1998. If we are not satisfied that your request falls under the Act, then we will let you know that this people search service is not for you. As a general rule of thumb, most commercial reasons that we are asked to locate people for are compliant.
Yes. We are geared up to handle volume work, and have capacity to take a single instruction to well over 5000 instructions per month. When dealing with volume trace enquiries, our turnaround time may be extended to handle the extra workload, but often clients find that once the instructions are rolling, they do not notice the extra time at all. Pricing for volume work falls the more volume is passed through to us.
Yes we can really operate a No Trace No Fee service. There is a myth that no trace no fee is not workable, that trace agents use outdated databases and have a hit rate of about 10%. This is simply untrue, and its a myth perpetrated by Trace Agents that charge regardless of result.
We have to work very hard to 'earn' our money, and we put a lot of effort into each trace because we know that if we can't find your person or company, then we have worked for nothing, and no one likes doing that. By the same token, someone who gets paid regardless of result, in our opinion, will not work as hard because they earn either way.
Yes. We take our obligations under the Data Protection Act very seriously and we engage in dialog directly with the Information Commissioners office when the lines are blurred either by new legislation, precedent or perhaps an unusual reason arises for tracing a person. We ensure that we remain within the law.
Yes. We will take instructions from companies abroad to locate people in the UK, providing that there is a reason for the trace that would meet with the criteria set for compliant traces. We work for banks and debt management companies as far afield as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa on a regular basis.
As a rule, we automatically extend 30 day terms to all Law Firms in the UK, because we work alongside many of the top firms. Other companies may request an account by registering with us. Accounts are given subject to status. If you use our Process Servers to serve legal documents, you can save 20% on our usual fees simply by sending a cheque for £100+VAT with your papers. Alternatively, you can benefit from our usual exceptional fees on a 30 day account also.
Our Process Servers do not just turn up and walk away if there is no response from the property. We are professionals and we like to get the job done. It has not been unheard of for our Process Servers to spend 8 hours on a case to ensure the papers were served. Process Serving is not about tricking the person into meeting with you, as many of our competitors believe it is. We do not pretend to be couriers trying to deliver a parcel, or other such methods we hear our competitors come out with. We ensure that we maintain a Professional approach to a serve at all times.
This means that there is less likelihood of an aggressive response from the person being served.
Yes. We have a small team of specialist Process Servers who are well trained to deal with serving legal documents in high risk situations, either because the person is known to be violent, carry weapons, or where the situation is regarded to be high risk, such as traveller encampments.
In these cases, we work closely with local Police Services to ensure the safety of our Process Servers and to ensure that the service of the legal documents is carried out professionally, and with the utmost due diligence.
The service of legal documents in high risk situations is a specialist service and therefore is subject to a different pricing structure, as this generally involves more than one Process Server being present, and depending on the operational status of the Police Service in question, may take longer to serve than serving papers in a low risk situation.