The legal area of debt collection and debt collection deals with the out-of-court or in-court assertion of (monetary) claims.
If a debtor refuses to pay, the creditor must generally sue in order to be able to enforce his claim by means of compulsory enforcement. Going to court can sometimes be very expensive and the process can drag on for months or even years. It is therefore advisable to first try to collect the debt out of court or through a dunning procedure.
To do this, you can, for example, commission a lawyer or a debt collection company to collect the debt. In debt collection, the lawyer usually sends a legal request for payment to the debtor, setting a final deadline. In debt collection, the considerable time and costs of legal proceedings can often be avoided through out-of-court negotiations.
Another option for debt collection is to carry out a so-called dunning procedure in court, which, as long as the debtor does not object, is cheaper and quicker than legal action.
If out-of-court efforts remain unsuccessful, all that remains is to take a civil court action and pursue compulsory enforcement against the debtor; this is also the subject of the area of debt collection and debt collection law.
The topic of debt collection and debt collection law is not an independently regulated area of law; it is primarily regulated in the Civil Code; further provisions for the area of debt collection and debt collection law can be found in the ZPO, ZVG or the RberG, among others.
On the following pages we will try to provide you with as much information as possible about the basics of debt collection and debt collection law.
We also recommend the following pages on the subject of debt collection and debt collection law: