Garvin: Exciting next chapter
A law firm that specialises in credit hire litigation has secured a £2m funding package to support a management buyout from a defunct alternative business structure.
Neil Garvin has become sole shareholder of Garvins Law in Manchester with the support of Harbour Credit, whose funding includes a £1m working capital facility.
Garvins was founded in 2007 and acquired by the EDAM Group in 2016. It used to handle personal injury work as well but moved away from this after the whiplash reforms kicked in to focus mainly on credit hire work for the EDAM Group, an alternative business structure that offered a range of accident management services.
EDAM went into administration in January 2025, along with two of the group businesses – accident management company Easi-Drive and Credit Repair, which arranged post-accident car repairs. But Garvins Law was solvent and continued to operate with the support of its then ultimate shareholder.
Both the joint administrators and EDAM’s lender used it to recover money owed to the group from trading both before and during the administration.
Mr Garvin said that, as this work has diminished, the firm has attracted instructions from various credit hire organisations.
Garvins’ accounts, for the year to 31 March 2026, showed it had turned a £200,000 loss the previous year into a £125,000 profit, with turnover more than doubling to £2.5m.
The solicitor has now bought the firm back for an undisclosed amount, describing the move as “an exciting next chapter”.
He said: “We have an experienced team, an established position in the credit hire market and ambitious plans to grow the business and develop our relationships across the credit hire and accident management sectors.”
Garvins currently has 22 people and the solicitor said a key selling point was the amount of supervision in place. While some may think the firm was top-heavy, he said, “for me it means we don’t get any strike-outs or any negligence claims”.
This is an area of law that has historically generated a lot of litigation – all the way to the Supreme Court – and where defendant insurers have long sought to challenge the amounts claimed by drivers.
The GTA – General Terms of Agreement – is a highly influential voluntary agreement on the reasonable cost of credit hire that aims to reduce disputes. In September, it introduced a binding ADR scheme [1] for invoices under £10,000 that remain unresolved after 61 days.
Mr Garvin was positive about it, saying that the binding nature made it “more powerful” than the ADR scheme that was part of the small claims process. But, he added, plenty of cases fall out of the GTA, identifying electric cars as one area where it currently fell short.
Canford Law is arguably the leading law firm in the market and in January sold a majority stake to a private equity house, since when it has made two significant acquisitions [2] that have doubled its size.
Mr Garvin said this was a sign of confidence in credit hire as a practice area, along with the fact that it is “quite niche as well [and] not a saturated market”.
But for him, an MBO was always the ambition so that the firm was “fully within my control again”.
He explained that he simply loved what he did: “I suppose the easy option would’ve been to walk away from it, but we’ve got such a great team and I think it’s evident from the feedback that we’ve got from our new business partners that we are good at what we do.”
Mr Garvin praised Harbour – best known as a litigation funder – for “taking the time to understand our business, how our cases progress and the timing of our cash flow. That enabled them to structure funding around the particular requirements of credit hire litigation and our plans for growth”.
Harbour has provided this type of funding to law firms since 2023, most notably to Slater & Gordon [3], and established Harbour Credit this year to distinguish its credit proposition from its litigation funding business.
Managing director Ellora MacPherson said: “Garvins Law has established expertise in credit hire litigation and a clear plan for growth. We have structured a facility that supports the change in ownership and provides working capital for the firm’s next stage of development.
“This is the first credit facility under the new Harbour Credit umbrella, and we are exploring several opportunities across the UK that we expect to close in the coming months.”