Payment order

What it means

A payment order is a court decision requiring the debtor to pay, issued without a hearing on documentary evidence alone: the contract, the invoice, the delivery note, correspondence.

If the debtor objects in time, the order is cancelled and the case proceeds as an ordinary dispute. If not, the order takes effect as a final judgment and becomes enforceable.

A payment order does not collect money by itself. It is a ruling that the debtor must pay; if the debtor still does not, separate enforcement follows, and against a debtor with no assets it ends where it began. Before applying it is worth checking the debtor’s creditworthiness and weighing whether the costs will exceed what can realistically be recovered.

How it works in practice

For a clear receivable it is the fastest route: a reminder, then an application for an order, ideally electronically with a lower court fee.

Good paperwork improves the odds. A signed order, a delivery note and an acknowledgment of debt turn a dispute into a formality; an invoice on its own is weak evidence.

Our part is the evidence pack: a sub-ledger listing of unpaid invoices, copies of invoices and delivery notes, the reminders sent, and a calculation of late payment interest to the filing date. The lawyer, or the client itself, can then file quickly without digging through binders.

What to watch out for

On the debtor’s side the reverse holds: never ignore an order that arrives. After the deadline nothing can be argued, not even that the goods never came, and enforcement follows.

The second mistake is waiting. The claim becomes time-barred and the debtor can raise limitation in its objection, so a late application is accepted at the registry but the court will not uphold the claim. With a customer who has not paid for a long time, sending more reminders is not enough: watch when the period runs out.