British Businesses Exposed

Over 30% of UK businesses are not using any professional help in drafting their company contracts, according to the recent ContractStore SME survey.  

We set up the survey to investigate the legal health of both Start Ups and existing British businesses.

Other findings include:-

• Approximately 1 in 5 firms have no budget for legal costs at all – of these, a third say bad debt is their greatest fear.
• 40% of companies name a possible ‘Recession’ as their ‘biggest fear, and this is followed by a fear of court proceedings – which was felt by 25% to be the primary threat to their business.
• Startups fear ‘bad debt’ more than existing business owners do – with 23% of Start Ups identifying this concern as what keeps them awake at night.
• And worryingly, over a quarter of Start Ups are not planning to get any legal support – i.e. 27%, intend to make their own contracts, and 22% haven’t set a budget for legal costs.
• Credit card fraud – came way down on the list as business concern – and for instance was mentioned by less that 3% of existing firms as their main fear.
• Significantly 21% of established businesses are not using Terms and Conditions – leaving themselves wide open to supplier and customer abuse.

We’d like to thank all the participants in the survey for helping us build this picture. If you’d like to keep up to date with future surveys or participate in one then sign up for blog updates on the right. You will then be notified when news comes through.

ContractStore.com supplies legally binding, professionally-drafted contracts for a fraction of the cost that law firms normally charge, and also offers useful free information on a variety of legal topics.