cheque du bois

[alanr]

I recently had a clients cheque bounce & despite several promises from him to pay his debt of 560 euros, the money is still owing. I have just received a certificat de non-paiement from the bank & have contacted a huissier to recover the debt. The huissier hsa asked for a "provision" of 280 euros to do this - if I pay the 280 euros is there any guarantee that I will get any of the 840 euros back?
thanks in advance

[Nemo]

I know nothing about the French legal system, but speaking personally, I would never pay that sort of money to recover a debt of 560 euros. 50% of the debt to try and recover it? Not odds I would run with. Others may differ and have knowledge of whether the process actually works though.

[Circé]

Sadly no, not even if you get a court judgement eventually...depends on the debtor's funds

[bornintheuk]

having had a similar thing happen about 3 yrs ago I would concur that its not worth it to get a hussier involved.
You could "porte plainte" at the Gendarmerie as its is against the law to write a cheque with insufficient funds. They will follow it up with an interview of the other party but wont take it any further as nobody was "injured" by the action.
Just a little bit of inconvenience for the person really.

[GillianF]

The French system almost prides itself on how long it could take - and there's no guarantee you would win. Even if you did win you'd probably still have to pay another load of money out to collect the money if they didn't pay up on the court's decision. The court will do nothing to help you.

Gillian

[wallypott]

Definitely go to the gendarmes and porte plainte, but I'm afraid my experience was I never recovered the money paid to the huissiers so it was more injury heaped on frankly. I have since been told that I should have been able to get that back too, but if that is the case I suspect it would only be after a court hearing (some time in the next life).