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In France we face new rules with direct influence of your debtor’s payments

Newsletter

Solvency check: the rule was that every company had to make his balance sheet public. Now a company with less than 51 employees and lees than 8 Mio € turnover can keep his figures hidden. In our point of view this is bad evolution in favour of those not paying their bills on time.

Cheque payment: the validity of a cheque is now reduced from 12 to 6 Months. You have to take care that every French person still signs more or less 37 cheques a year at least 100 times more than the Germans.

Court procedure for unpaid bills: for small amounts it’s now possible to skip a court verdict and to get directly a verdict from a bailiff. The details about this new procedure are not hundred per cent clear.
You face the same evolution in other European countries like Croatia where the public notary is also able to provide a verdict without going to Court.

Solvency Check

Solvency check

In France there is a major change.

The publication of the balance sheet was mandatory, for not doing you faced criminal charges.

From now on the companies with

  • Less than 51 employees
  • A turnover under 8 Mio Euros

Can make a demand to keep their balance sheet secret.

EXECUTION PROCEDURE IN CROATIA FOR DEBT COLLECTION

Unpaid debt

As a first step, official warning letter is send to the debtor. If there are no response from the debtor, in the first stage of the debt collection procedure in Croatia, the creditor commences the appropriate execution procedure by forwarding to the debtor the so-called Motion on the Execution Based on the Reliable Documents (reliable documents = invoices or excerpt from the creditor’s business books) through the notary public. In case of the debtor’s objection (debtor can file the objection to the notary public within 8 days as of receipt the creditor’s motion is revoked and is dealt with as an ordinary complaint (lawsuit)

in a lack of debtor’s objection, the Decision on execution will become final and binding, Financial Agency issues the order to all banks in Croatia to seize all of the debtor’s bank accounts. In case there is not enough assets on the bank accounts to settle the claim, debtor’s savings accounts and deposits are also seized. Additionally, it seems that this seizure also refers to all bank accounts the debtor might possibly open in the future.

MAIN SPECIFICS OF THE EXECUTION PROCEUDURE IN CROATIA

  • In order to initiate the execution procedure before the Public Notary; the creditor should have its PIN (Personal Identification Number) obtained before local Tax Department (this is the legal requirement envisaged under the Croatian Execution Law). Obtaining the PIN is a simple corporate action.
  • During the execution procedure, two original copies of invoice/s issued to the debtor, executed with corporate seal of the creditor and signed by its responsible person for billing matters must be submitted to the Public Notary. Alternatively, we can use the official excerpt from the creditor’s business books executed with creditor’s corporate seal and signed by its responsible person for billing matters. Furthermore, the foreign invoices/excerpts from the creditor’s business books must be translated in Croatia (to a Croatian language by the officially appointed court expert).