Commercial Debt Recovery Lawyers in Melbourne

Your unpaid invoice has become an interest-free loan

Every month an invoice sits unpaid, your business is lending that customer money at zero interest while they pay whichever creditors push hardest. Your debtor knows exactly what they owe you. They are ranking their creditors, and polite reminder emails put you near the bottom of that list.

Moving up the list is a legal exercise, and business-to-business debt gives you a stronger toolkit than any other kind of creditor holds: statutory demands against company debtors, personal guarantees against their directors, indemnity costs clauses that make the debtor fund your lawyer, and contractual interest running from the due date.

If your business is owed money, call MK Law on 1800 130 120. The first call is free, and by the end of it you will know whether the debt is recoverable, which tool fits, and whether it is worth chasing at all.

The commercial toolkit, in the order we usually reach for it

A lawyer-drafted letter of demand opens most files, because most commercial debts are paid within fourteen days of one landing. It is fast, and it preserves the trading relationship better than anything that follows it.

For a company debtor owing $4,000 or more with no genuine dispute, a statutory demand is the escalation that works. The debtor has 21 days to pay or to apply to set it aside, and after that it is presumed insolvent. Companies that ignored six months of invoices find money inside those 21 days with remarkable regularity.

Where the debtor is disputing the invoice, or is not a company, we file a complaint in the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria for debts up to $100,000, or in the County or Supreme Court above that. An undisputed claim that draws no defence within 21 days of service goes to default judgment, which is why many “court” files never see a courtroom. When the argument runs deeper than the invoice, into the quality of the work or what the deal actually required, you are no longer in recovery but in one of the business disputes our litigators handle.

Your paperwork decides how strong you are

Before we send anything, we read your credit application, terms of trade and guarantees, because they shape the whole recovery. An indemnity costs clause puts your legal fees onto the debtor. An interest clause means the debt has been growing quietly since the due date, and a director’s guarantee means the company’s empty bank account is not the end of the road. Send the documents through before the free call and you will get a concrete answer, in plain terms, on the call itself.

Get your debt assessed free

Getting judgment is only half the job

A judgment against a debtor with assets converts to money quickly. There is a warrant of seizure and sale against goods, a garnishee order redirecting the debtor’s bank balance or the money its own customers owe it, an instalment order, and an examination summons that puts a director in court under oath to disclose where the assets are. Judgment debts also earn penalty interest at 10 per cent a year for as long as the debtor delays.

For substantial debts against a company that will not pay, winding-up proceedings follow. Against a guarantor personally, a bankruptcy notice is available once your judgment is $10,000 or more, and it carries its own 21-day compliance window before bankruptcy proceedings become the next move. Our insolvency lawyers run those files when a debtor collapses, and where a debt has hardened into a genuine commercial fight, our commercial litigation lawyers take it to trial.

The honest maths, before you spend a dollar

Not every debt is worth chasing, and a firm that says otherwise is selling you something. On the first call we weigh the debt against the debtor: the amount, your documents, whether interest and costs are recoverable, and what enforcement against this particular debtor would actually collect. If the realistic recovery will not clear the legal spend, we tell you, and the call has still cost you nothing.

When the numbers do work, we move stage by stage with your approval, and with the right contract terms the bulk of your legal spend comes back from the debtor on top of the debt.

Make the call this week

The six-year limitation clock is the legal deadline, but the practical one is much shorter. Debtor companies deregister, directors move assets, and every other creditor is deciding right now whether to move before you do. Call 1800 130 120 or use the form on this page, and see the full recovery ladder on our debt recovery lawyers page.