There are two mechanisms for claiming a debt in Spain: out-of-court and in-court. The vast majority of creditors contact the debtor before initiating any type of legal proceedings. In order to try to reach an agreement and settle the debt.
Analysing The Claim
Our new clients sends our collections team the details of the claim in Spain which includes invoices, agreement, summary and contact details of the debtor. The key thing here is the summary and the agreement.
We’ll look at the summary and try to understand what actually happened.
We’ll look at things like the jurisdiction and how that affects a potential legal recovery which might happen later.
We’ll look at the financial position of the company in Spain and whether the summary of the claim – what the debtor is saying is their position, and look for any potential angles.
For example, the debtor in Spain says they have no money but meanwhile are hiring new people via Linkedin – that’s just one example.
Defining The Strategy
Once the team are agreed on what the facts are and the available remedies (both pre and post legal), then we will agree on how we will approach the debtor in Spain, the type of communication, to whom it will be addressed.
For example, this might take the form of a straight forward recovery process or it might take the form of reaching out to start a dialogue in a more “dispute resolution” type of approach.
So there are many different options in Spain, its important to define the strategy and get it right from the outset. Its also really important that the strategy reflects the potential legal action which might occur in the future.
As lawyers specialized in legal and accounting advice, we will always make the best decision for our clients.
Implementing The 30 Day Campaign
We’ll issue a 30-day recovery process where we will use our best endeavours to reach out to the debtor in Spain, state the case based on the agreed upon strategy and instruct the debtor to pay the outstanding debt to Lawants’s Client Account.
This communication process starts with the initial email and is followed up with daily phone calls. Each week we implement the next stage of the campaign, increasing pressure on the debtor in Spain.
Receiving Payment in Spain
Usually, once Lawants has set out the case as to why the debt is owed, providing the debtor has funds and realises that if it doesn’t pay then the consequences of legal action would potentially impact its business, the debt is paid.
It can take time to arrive at this point, the Lawants team are patient and resilient realising that sometimes debtors have good reasons why they can’t pay.
We work with all sides in order to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome. The best outcomes are where a debtor is re-onboarded as a client, the debt is solved and the two parties can renew their business relationship.
