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<\/h3>\n<\/h3>\nPortugal has gotten a lot of attention in the past few years, favoring the commercial relations\/market.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless whether because of the COVID crisis, negligence when it comes to conceding credit or misleading due to personal reasons of the debtors\/due to various reasons, the Portuguese courts have had a high amount of lawsuits regarding debts collections and that escalates when it comes to large urban centers, suffocating the judiciary.<\/p>\n
As an illustration, it was noted in that in 1995, 1996 and 1997 respectively, 46.760, 56.667 and 88.523 lawsuits were filed in the small civil instance courts in Lisbon, most of them having to do with debt collection.<\/p>\n
To ease the problem, Portugal has adopted a simplified procedure on the debt collecting in mass.<\/p>\n
The collection process can take two different paths.<\/p>\n
The lack of payment can be solved with an amicable settlement between the parties. The debtor is contacted, and it is made a request of payment indicating the amount due and payment deadline advising that further actions may be taken in case the debtor does not proceed to payment.<\/p>\n
Starting with the amicable agreement is a good strategy because your debtor, even though being delayed, might still be willing to pay his debt (in cash or through instalment payments). Besides that, it is faster, less stressful, and cheaper than going to court.<\/p>\n
However, if your debtor refuses to pay or do not respond the notice of payment then legal actions must be taken.<\/p>\n
Once again there are two procedures that can be chosen: Injun\u00e7\u00e3o (simple claim) or Ac\u00e7\u00e3o Declarativa (regular claim).<\/p>\n
The simplified procedure (Injun\u00e7\u00e3o) can be used if there is a simple, undisputed procedure. Basically, consists in obtaining a Payment Order to be delivered to the debtor, in which, if not contested, the National Bureau for Payment Orders (Balc\u00e3o Nacional de Injun\u00e7\u00f5es) will issue a declaration of enforce ability.<\/p>\n
The simplified procedure is less expensive, faster (it can last up to three months) and effective in most cases.<\/p>\n
However, if the debts gets disputed, the procedure may be converted into a common law suit. In that case, a hearing takes place, and the judge then comes with a judgment.<\/p>\n
The decision may be then subject to enforcement to seize liquidate and pay the creditors debt.<\/p>\n
Debt recovered by trial procedure takes more time then out of court collection, and has additional costs in accordance to each action, although court fees are calculated according to what is established by the law. These costs are fully refundable by the debtor.<\/p>\n
The option to choose between one and other of the ways to collect your debt, will require proper advice in order to adopt the best strategy to your case.<\/p>\n
PMCG expertise in credit collection on B2B cross border transactions.<\/p>\n
Contact us to pose a free consultation on your case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OVERDUE CREDITS IN CROSS BORDER TRANSACTIONS – PORTUGAL COLLECTIONS Portugal has gotten a lot of attention in the past few years,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14334,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,284,307,477,221,308],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-articles","8":"category-bussiness-disputes","9":"category-colelctions","10":"category-credit-collection","11":"category-news","12":"category-overdue-credits"},"yoast_head":"\n