Disbursement

Last updated

A disbursement is a form of payment from a public or dedicated fund. Alternatively, it means a payment made on behalf of a client to a third party, for which reimbursement is subsequently sought from the client.

It is a term most commonly used by solicitors in the UK to refer to payments which they have made or will make to third parties in connection with the matter they are dealing with on behalf of the client. [1] Section 67 of the Solicitors Act 1974 refers to disbursements as “costs payable in discharge of a liability properly incurred by [the solicitor] on behalf of the party to be charged with the bill”. [2] These may include court fees, counsel's fees, fees for medical or other expert reports or search fees in a property transaction.

Disbursements paid by an undertaker on behalf of a bereaved family generally include cemetery or crematorium costs, costs for religious worship and any newspaper announcements. [3]

For VAT purposes, disbursements are defined more narrowly and distinguished from recharges like travelling expenses and postage, which are incurred by the business for its own requirements rather than for the customer. VAT is applied to recharges, but not to disbursements. [4]

Related Research Articles

At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at law, the loss must involve damage to property, or mental or physical injury; pure economic loss is rarely recognised for the award of damages.

In English civil litigation, costs are the lawyers' fees and disbursements of the parties.

A lien is a form of security interest granted over an item of property to secure the payment of a debt or performance of some other obligation. The owner of the property, who grants the lien, is referred to as the lienee and the person who has the benefit of the lien is referred to as the lienor or lien holder.

An escrow is a contractual arrangement in which a third party receives and disburses money or property for the primary transacting parties, with the disbursement dependent on conditions agreed to by the transacting parties. Examples include an account established by a broker for holding funds on behalf of the broker's principal or some other person until the consummation or termination of a transaction; or, a trust account held in the borrower's name to pay obligations such as property taxes and insurance premiums. The word derives from the Old French word escroue, meaning a scrap of paper or a scroll of parchment; this indicated the deed that a third party held until a transaction was completed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Factoring (finance)</span> Financial transaction and a type of debtor finance

Factoring is a financial transaction and a type of debtor finance in which a business sells its accounts receivable to a third party at a discount. A business will sometimes factor its receivable assets to meet its present and immediate cash needs. Forfaiting is a factoring arrangement used in international trade finance by exporters who wish to sell their receivables to a forfaiter. Factoring is commonly referred to as accounts receivable factoring, invoice factoring, and sometimes accounts receivable financing. Accounts receivable financing is a term more accurately used to describe a form of asset based lending against accounts receivable. The Commercial Finance Association is the leading trade association of the asset-based lending and factoring industries.

A contingent fee is any fee for services provided where the fee is payable only if there is a favourable result. Although such a fee may be used in many fields, it is particularly well associated with legal practice.

A stipend is a regular fixed sum of money paid for services or to defray expenses, such as for scholarship, internship, or apprenticeship. It is often distinct from an income or a salary because it does not necessarily represent payment for work performed; instead it represents a payment that enables somebody to be exempt partly or wholly from waged or salaried employment in order to undertake a role that is normally unpaid or voluntary, or which cannot be measured in terms of a task. A paid judge in an English magistrates' court was formerly termed a "stipendiary magistrate", as distinct from the unpaid "lay magistrates". In 2000, these were respectively renamed "district judge " and "magistrate".

QuickBooks is an accounting software package developed and marketed by Intuit. First introduced in 1983, QuickBooks products are geared mainly toward small and medium-sized businesses and offer on-premises accounting applications as well as cloud-based versions that accept business payments, manage and pay bills, and payroll functions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liquidated damages</span>

Liquidated damages, also referred to as liquidated and ascertained damages (LADs), are damages whose amount the parties designate during the formation of a contract for the injured party to collect as compensation upon a specific breach. This is most applicable where the damages are intangible, such as a failure by the contractor on a public project to fulfill minority business subcontracting quotas.

Attorney's fee is a chiefly United States term for compensation for legal services performed by an attorney for a client, in or out of court. It may be an hourly, flat-rate or contingent fee. Recent studies suggest that when lawyers charge a flat-fee rather than billing by the hour, they work less hard on behalf of clients and clients get worse outcomes. Attorney fees are separate from fines, compensatory and punitive damages, and from court costs in a legal case. Under the "American rule", attorney fees are usually not paid by the losing party to the winning party in a case, except pursuant to specific statutory or contractual rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barristers in England and Wales</span> One of the two main categories of lawyer in England and Wales

Barristers in England and Wales are one of the two main categories of lawyer in England and Wales, the other being solicitors. Barristers have traditionally had the role of handling cases for representation in court, both defence and prosecution.

An individual voluntary arrangement (IVA) is a formal alternative in England and Wales for individuals wishing to avoid bankruptcy. In Scotland, the equivalent statutory debt solution is known as a protected trust deed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act</span>

The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) was a law passed by the United States Congress in 1974 and codified as Title 12, Chapter 27 of the United States Code, 12 U.S.C. §§ 26012617. The main objective was to protect homeowners by assisting them in becoming better educated while shopping for real estate services, and eliminating kickbacks and referral fees which add unnecessary costs to settlement services. RESPA requires lenders and others involved in mortgage lending to provide borrowers with pertinent and timely disclosures regarding the nature and costs of a real estate settlement process. RESPA was also designed to prohibit potentially abusive practices such as kickbacks and referral fees, the practice of dual tracking, and imposes limitations on the use of escrow accounts.

In English law, a law costs draftsman is a specialist lawyer who settles the legal costs of a court case. The role of the law costs draftsman centres on a procedure known as the detailed assessment of costs, which is controlled by statute in England and Wales. They are concerned with costs relating to all areas of the law and deal with every conceivable type of legal matter that touches upon the subject of costs. An experienced and competent law costs professional may command a salary on a par with that of a solicitor or legal executive.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is the regulatory body for solicitors in England and Wales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Accounting software</span>

Accounting software is a computer program that maintains account books on computers, including recording transactions and account balances. It may depends on virtual thinking. Depending on the purpose, the software can manage budgets, perform accounting tasks for multiple currencies, perform payroll and customer relationship management, and prepare financial reporting. The first accounting software was introduced in 1978. Since then, the accounting software has revolutionized from supporting basic accounting operations to performing real-time accounting and supporting financial processing and reporting. Cloud accounting software was first introduced in 2011, and it allowed to perform all accounting functions through the internet.

The Funeral Rule, enacted by the Federal Trade Commission on April 30, 1984, and amended effective 1994, was designed to protect consumers by requiring that they receive adequate information concerning the goods and services they may purchase from a funeral provider.

Legal protection insurance (LPI), also known as legal expenses insurance (LEI) or simply legal insurance, is a particular class of insurance which facilitates access to law and justice by providing legal advice and covering the legal costs of a dispute, regardless of whether the case is brought by or against the policyholder. Depending on the national rules, legal protection insurers can also represent the policyholder out-of-court or even in-court.

In Australia, trust money in the legal industry is the money a law practice holds on behalf of a client or other people in the course of, or in connection with, the provision of legal services. Trust money is required to be held by a law firm on a client's behalf in a trust account with a bank and is highly regulated. A lawyer or law firm should not appropriate a client's trust money until certain regulations are met, which are different for each state in Australia. The Australian system regulating lawyers and their trust accounts has been labeled by the Rudd Government as an "unwieldy monster".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Value-added tax</span> Form of consumption tax

A value-added tax (VAT), known in some countries as a goods and services tax (GST), is a type of tax that is assessed incrementally. It is levied on the price of a product or service at each stage of production, distribution, or sale to the end consumer. If the ultimate consumer is a business that collects and pays to the government VAT on its products or services, it can reclaim the tax paid. It is similar to, and is often compared with, a sales tax. VAT is an indirect tax because the person who ultimately bears the burden of the tax is not necessarily the same person as the one who pays the tax to the tax authorities.

References

  1. Law Society, VAT on disbursements, 10 March 2011, accessed 6 November 2016
  2. Solicitors Act 1974
  3. Paul McEvoy and Sons Family Funeral Directors, Charges by the Funeral Director, accessed 6 November 2016
  4. HMRC, VAT: costs or disbursements passed to customers, published 1 July 2014, accessed 6 November 2016