Order to Pay

To recover an unpaid debt, it is possible to contact our office for a debt collection procedure or to apply free of charge to a judge for an order for payment. There is no minimum amount to initiate such proceedings. Our office assists you in filing the Order for Payment and in the collection of your debt.

The procedure is in three stages:

1 - the presentation of the motion to the judge :

An order for payment procedure can be initiated in the event that the claim (debt) arises :

• either a contract (a purchase from a merchant or a bank loan for example) or a statutory obligation, and its amount is determined (unpaid invoice, credit, bank overdraft, rent...)
• or a bill of exchange, a promissory note, acceptance of an assignment of a professional claim (Bordereau Dailly)

En revanche, cette procédure ne peut pas être utilisée pour obtenir le paiement d’une pension alimentaire ou d’un  chèque sans provision, pour lesquels il existe des procédures spécifiques de recouvrement.

The request must have a certain formalism and contain :

• for natural persons, the indication of the surname, first names, profession, domicile, nationality, date and place of birth of the applicant,
• an indication of the name and domicile of the person against whom the application is made or, in the case of a legal person, its name and registered office,
• the object of the request,
• a precise indication of the amount of the sum claimed with a breakdown of the various elements of the claim and the basis of the claim.

It is accompanied by all the supporting documents proving the validity of the request (purchase order, contract, unpaid invoice, letter of formal notice, etc.).

Warning: if one of the indications is missing, the application is void.

In order to avoid your request being rejected for a purely formal problem, our study studies your file and prepares in your place the motion that we will file ourselves on the judge's desk.

Again, we have to be careful, because we have to do it before the end of the limitation period.

To find out which is the competent jurisdiction, our office will assist you and file the application on your behalf. Indeed, in principle, the competent court is that of the debtor's domicile (or registered office) but there are exceptions, such as in the case of unpaid co-ownership charges ...

2 - The judge's decision

The procedure is not adversarial, i.e. the judge takes a decision based solely on the elements provided by the creditor, without having been able to hear the arguments of the debtor (the one who owes money).

Si le juge estime la requête justifiée, il rend une « ordonnance portant injonction de payer » pour la somme qu’il retient.

If, on the other hand, the judge rejects the application, the creditor (the one claiming payment) has no recourse, but can initiate standard legal proceedings.

 Attention :

It is the creditor's responsibility to transmit the order for payment to the debtor by bailiff, at his own expense, by means of a certified copy of the application and the order. The order is cancelled if it is not done within 6 months.

This is why our firm carries out these due diligences very quickly, as soon as we receive them.

Le débiteur dispose d’un mois à partir de la signification de l’ordonnance d’injonction par le créancier, pour la contester par voie d’opposition auprès du tribunal qui l’a rendue.

He can go to court:

• either by declaration to the court clerk's office, by going to the site,
• or by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt. In this case, all relevant documents should be attached to the letter (copy of the order received, references on the decision, etc.).

The court shall summon the parties. It hears them, then tries to reconcile them and, failing that, gives a judgment. Representation by a lawyer is not compulsory, except in the case of proceedings before the tribunal de grande instance.

Ce jugement peut être contesté devant la cour d’appel par le créancier ou le débiteur, si le montant de la demande est supérieur à 4 000 €.

In other cases, it can be challenged before the Court of Cassation.

3 - Enforcement of the order

If the debtor does not respond to the order for payment at the end of the one-month period, our study asks the registry to affix the executory form to the order. This then has the value of a judgment.

We proceed to the forced recovery of the order thus issued, whatever the place of residence of your debtor: Whether he is in our Court of Appeal area (Yvelines 78, Hauts de Seine 92, Val d'Oise 95 or Eure et Loir 28 Departments) but also outside this area by managing the file and occasionally calling on the bailiff of our nearest network.

In the end, you don't have to do anything.