“The pursuing of unpaid fees is important so that parents who meet the commitments they undertake when choosing our schools do not end up carrying the burden of those who don’t.”
“We work with numerous schools in the independent sector and it is increasingly more necessary for schools to instigate court action to recover unpaid fees, which can occasionally lead to bankruptcy,” said Stuart North, Managing Director. “Insolvency is an accepted and transparent legal process and only ever used when other options, including payment plans and settlements, have been fully exhausted. Only when a case meets stringent criteria to allow Insolvency Action as an option, is this action considered.”
For Cognita, this is a last resort, only undertaken after all other efforts to secure repayment have proved unsuccessful and after the concessions we’ve already made to the parent have been disregarded.
Barnaby Lenon, former head at Harrow and chairman of the Independent Schools Council , said he had “never heard” parents going bankrupt.
However, he said parents in financial difficulty “happens occasionally”. He added: “Parents should work together with schools so that they don’t simply default on fees. He said schools look at different options to help struggling parents, including turning their debt into a bursary, remortgaging their homes to raise extra cash or extending the period of repayments.