When does the clock start ticking?

Hi Colin,

Thanks for the question. It’s an interesting one.

Firstly I have to say that I am quite intrigued to understand how it came to be that the invoice was not chased for payment for over two years. We would certainly recommend more vigorous credit management. We at the Credit Protection Association would be happy to talk to you about that.


With regard to the question, a lot will come down to your terms and conditions and the contract between your companies and what they say about methods of communication and credit terms.

In the absence of your contractual terms support for the older invoice date, the due date for your invoice would be 30 days after your client received the invoice.

If your client can successfully argue that they hadn’t received the invoice because it had been sent to the wrong email address and they can argue that they haven’t been chased for payment since or notified in any other way of the invoice’s existence then the courts would likely agree that interest could only be charged from 30 days after they actually received the invoice, providing it wasn’t settled in the interim. Whilst your client obviously knew that the work had been undertaken, I think in these circumstances you would have a hard time convincing a District Judge that you are entitled to two years’ worth of interest. The courts can decide to cancel interest in certain circumstances although that doesn’t apply to the late payment compensation.

I am sorry it is probably not what you wanted to hear but I hope it helps. Feel free to get in contact if you need any more assistance.

James Salmon
The Credit Protection Association Plc