Poorly paying customers
Unpaid invoices: every entrepreneur suffers from them. Even after conducting proceedings and obtaining a judgement, it is sometimes difficult to effectively obtain payment.
It used to be difficult, for example, to proceed with an attachment on your customer's account, as you often had no idea to which bank this account belonged.
Recently, it has become easier to obtain this information as a creditor. You can read more about these new possibilities in this Wanted Fact.
The collection of invoices
If your customer does not make voluntary payment after the necessary reminders and demands, you can consult a lawyer to take further steps. This lawyer will also usually start by sending the customer a final notice of default. This first stage is called amicable collection.
If no payment follows, you will be forced to obtain an enforceable title to take further steps. You can obtain an enforcement order via a procedure in court or via the bailiff (IOS procedure (B2B)), ordering your customer to make payment.
On the basis of this enforceable title, a bailiff can take enforcement measures (e.g. seizure) on behalf of your debtor. This is therefore called judicial collection.
Executive seizure of bank account
One of these enforcement measures is the levying of executive seizure from third parties at the customer's bank. In other words, you can have the funds in the customer's bank account(s) seized from the bank if you have an enforceable title.
However, the difficulty here is that the seizure must be levied on a specific bank. In other words, it is advisable to know in advance with which bank the debtor is a customer.
If the debtor is not a customer of the bank where the seizure is levied, the attachment will have no effect. Given the high cost of the bank seizure, it is best to avoid such a scenario. After all, you will have to pay the bailiff's costs as principal. You can recover these costs from the debtor, but if the debtor proves insolvent, you will therefore not be able to recover them.
The bailiff can request bank details prior to executive attachment
Often, as a creditor, you do not know with which bank your debtor is a customer. In that case, it used to be very difficult to find out this information.
Recently, the bailiff can request the debtor's bank details from the National Bank prior to making an executive bank attachment.
In this case, the following details will be communicated:
- The identification of the bank or banks with which the debtor has one or more bank accounts.
- Further information on the bank account(s) concerned:
- If the available balance is equal or greater than the amount to be seized: confirmation of the available amount is sufficient.
- If the available balance is less than the amount to be seized: the available balance.
Based on this information, you as a creditor will thus be able to make an informed decision on whether or not to proceed with the bank seizure.
Important note: the National Bank does not have real-time bank balances. These are renewed only twice a year. The data are therefore not always up to date and may differ from the balance actually present at the time of the attachment.
So it is important to always remember that the consultation with the National Bank is only a snapshot and you should always remain cautious. A general solvency check (review of seizure notices, etc.) is therefore always advisable.
Time to review your unpaid invoices?
This relaxation in the law will make it easier for you to assess whether you might still be able to recover your unpaid invoices. Indeed, this will allow you to make a better assessment of whether a bank seizure is expedient with regard to a specific debtor.
Even if the requested information will not always be up to date, this can still be a tool to optimise your collection policy and minimise your unpaid invoices.
You can always contact Wanted Law to assist you in this regard.
Precautionary seizure of bank accounts?
In some cases, as a creditor, you also have the option of making a precautionary seizure. The question therefore arises whether the bailiff in this case can also automatically request the bank details.
The law also expressly introduces this possibility, but makes it dependent on the court's authorisation.
Specifically, you can ask the judge via a unilateral petition to allow you to request the bank details and make the bank seizure.
If the judge grants this authorisation, you will be able to identify the debtor's bank(s) and account(s).
In this way, you will thus be able to proceed with the precautionary seizure of your debtor's bank account.