Dimarco & Partners International Law Firm
Debt Collection in Italy
Our team of international lawyers is specialized in debt collection in Italy in favour of foreign Clients. Our experience in this field permits us to recollect significant amounts of money in favour of foreign multinational and medium small companies. Our firm already takes care of the debt collection in favour of multinational companies handling more than 2.000,00 cases per month. We believe that the approach in debt collection has to be methodological and for this reason we divide our activities in precise phases:
  • Analysis of the italian debtor;
  • Extrajudicial phase: drafting of a formal legal notice of payment against the debtor in Italy;
  • Court action;
  • Enforcement procedure on properties, bank account or credits belonging to the italian debtor.
After the analysis of the italian debtor, our lawyers draft the formal legal notice of payment. In this stage our Law Firm will try to reach a transaction with the debtor, avoiding the judicial action. The importance of this phase is not just warning the debtor that a judicial action is going to start but it has also a further meaning. Commercial credits have a prescription period of five years: it means that if the creditor waits more than five years without interrupting the prescription, his right will be extinguished. The legal notice of payment has also the function to interrupt the prescription period (ex. a credit arosen on 1st of November 2010 it will expire on 1st of November 2015; if a legal notice of payment is sent on 25th of October 2015, the prescription period will run again and the credit will be extinguished on 25th of October 2020).
                                                                THE COURT ACTIONS:
  • Decreto Ingiuntivo (Order of Payment) for certain, liquid and payable credits:
It is the most common procedure for the cases concerning unpaid invoices. In italy this court action is called "decreto ingiuntivo" and it is developed inaudita altera parte. Our lawyers submit the order of payment providing to the Court the following documentation:
  1. unpaid invoices translated into italian and authenticated;
  2. documents of transport (if there is a delivery of goods);
  3. contract or confirmation order;
  4. recognition of debt (a written document from the debtor that admits the debt), even if this is not compulsory. The presence of this document permits us to require the injunction temporarily enforceable.
Once we receive the documentation, we start our action of debt collection: the decreto ingiuntivo is delivered to the court and If there is a recognition of debt the order of payment is temporarily enforceable and our lawyers can proceed with the enforcement. If this document is missing, the provision is not temporarily enforceable. Once the injunction is released from the judge we notificate it and the debtor has 40 days to oppose the decreto ingiuntivo starting an ordinary process. If there isn't opposition, in the term of 40 days, the order of payment becomes enforceable and it is considered as a enfoceable sentence.
  •  The ordinary action:
In case that the credits doesn't arise from an unpaid invoice it is not probably certain, liquid and payable. The typical case for corporates is the wrongful breach of a contract. In these kind of cases the agreements often contains a penalty clause to quantify the amounts dued from the part that terminated the contract unlawfully. Even if at first sight there is a clear determination of the credit, it is not possible to ask for an order of payment because the court has to ascertain the credit, not considering it certain, liquid and payable. For this reason it will be necessary to start an ordinary action in front of the court. It is possible to check the various phases of the ordinary action in the section Litigation in Italy.
In case the debt collection is positive and we obtain an enforcement order,  our lawyer proceed with its notification, attaching a further deed called precetto, and after ten days from the positive reception of the deeds from the debtor, they can proceed with the next steps:
  1. Enforcement of the bank account belonging to the italian debtor;
  2. Enforcement of the real estate belonging to the italian debtor;
  3. Enforcement of goods belonging to the italian debtor;
  4. Enforcement of credits belonging to the italian debtor.

We look forward to cooperate with You.