6. Enforcement
You do not have to enforce the Act on your debtors. If you do enforce the Act you have six years from the invoice date to do so. The minimum requirement for taking legal action, in terms of physical evidence, is an overdue invoice. However, such a limited attempt at debt recovery will not be in your best interest when you meet the district judge!
To start your claim for interest, and the amount unpaid on your invoice, you should first write to your debtor stating the invoice date, number, service/product and amount overdue. You should then add in another paragraph the amount of interest due to date, and at what rate the interest will rise on a daily basis. Finally, you should set a time limit by when you want paid (3, 7, 10, 14 days) or for the debtor to raise any issues relevant to non-payment. Bear in mind, the longer you give to pay, the less you are likely to get paid. Such a letter is considered as a 'formal demand' for payment and is considered as good business practice.
If the demands in your letter are not met, you can then sue through your local court. You can use a third party (debt agency, solicitor) to do this for you. Some businesses sell their debt portfolio to specialist debt traders: as long as the original creditor informs the debtor of the assignment to the new 'owners', all is in order. Suppliers can act as agents for factored invoices, as can debt recovery agents calculate and claim interest on their client's debt portfolio. Any disagreement as to interest periods and rates can still make their way to the county courts as with any other commercial dispute.
