Help - Owed a lot of money from someone in the EU 25 April 2020 at 11:04AM in Bankruptcy & Living With It 1 reply 201 views

monixg

Hi, apologies if I'm posting this in the wrong area. I'm writing on behalf of my boyfriend. He did some design work for a person 10 years ago and she still owes him just over €5000. He was living in Spain at the time and she is in Ireland. He is now in London (as am I). They have had lots of correspondence over the years and she fully knows what she owes him, paid the odd tiny instalment here and there - it's just lately she is full of excuses. He suffered from ill health for a few years (and moved a lot) so didn't deal with the stress of dealing with her legally - is it too late? How can I help him get his money back from her? I've heard of something called a European Payment order - can you do that without a solicitor? Or do you absolutely NEED a solicitor? We don't have much money but this woman owes other designers too, and has gone bankrupt a couple of times (we think in order to get out of paying people), so we think she knows how to play the system. All we want to do is make an official demand to get her to pay him what she owes.
Thanks so much in advance for any advice you can give us! 

sourcrates

Hi,

Unfortunatly the passage of time may now mean this debt is statute barred, and you are out of time to claim it.

You say she`s paid in dribs and drabs, has there been a clear 6 years without any payment ?

The limitations period in this country is 6 years, in spain its now 5 years, and in ireland its also 6 years.

You must take legal action in their country of residence, then of course thats only the first step, you then have to spend more money to enforce the judgement, and different legal systems work in different ways.

Add to that she has been bankrupt twice, and i think all chance of a payday has long since been eroded, as bankrupcy is an all encompassing process, it includes all debts outstanding at the time, and if she`s been bankrupt twice, you can forget it.

European Payment Orders are only any use if the claim is uncontested, and non of the above apply, no where to go with this one i`m afraid.