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Sooner or later, your company will encounter people who do not honour their payment obligations.

We can offer advice and strategies for adequately and efficiently monitoring these collections. We will do everything to collect your outstanding payments in the most efficient manner possible. We are a one-stop shop for your debtor management. If you give us your overdue invoice, we will open a dossier the very same day. Once we have performed initial checks on the solvency of your debtor, we will issue the notification of breach, represent you in court and closely follow the resulting legal ruling on your behalf.

During each collection dossier, we will consider whether to collect your claim using the traditional collection procedure initiated via a summons, or via a national or international order for payment.

The (extra-judicial) procedure for collecting indisputable financial debts from companies, also referred to as the Belgian order for payment, is a relatively new procedure that came into effect in 2016. These debts are collected by a bailiff, without the involvement of the courts.

Until recently, this procedure could only be implemented between Belgian companies (B2B). Legislators extended the scope of this measure from 1 October 2018 so that companies from the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, France, Austria, Spain and Italy can also implement this procedure to collect indisputable invoices from Belgian companies. However, Belgian companies are not able to implement this procedure against foreign debtors. In contrast, you are able to initiate a procedure based on the European order for payment procedure (Regulation (EC) no. 1896/2006).

In order to initiate this procedure, the claimable debt, which you would like to be settled, cannot be disputed by the debtor. If this debt is disputed, you can only recover it via the traditional procedure through the courts.

You must use a lawyer if you would like to have a Belgian order for payment issued. We will double-check to see if the debt is eligible and will contact a bailiff for collection. The bailiff will issue a reminder to the debtor, together with a copy of the supporting documents and a response form, after which the debtor will have a period of one month to settle the debt, agree payment in instalments or dispute the debt.

The Belgian order for payment is an extra-judicial procedure that is renowned for its speed. But this procedure also has disadvantages compared to a traditional procedure:

  • As the creditor, you are not entitled to indemnity for procedure costs;
  • Irrespective of the contractual conditions, you are only entitled to standard compensation of 10%. In other words, this procedure does not entitle you to separate late payment interest, compensation or indemnity for legal costs.

Another disadvantage is that the debtor can, during the whole process and after the declaration of enforceability, still legally dispute the matter, whereby the status of the obtained debt becomes uncertain.

No matter which means of collection you prefer, our team can help you from start to finish.