Invoicing a non trading / dormant company

Hi - can anyone help please.
I have a client with a debt.
The invoice was sent to what appears to be either a dormant or non trading company. How do we stand regarding sending out a LBA?
Any advise would be welcomed.
Many thanks, Chris

Well the first question we would ask your client is "are you sure this dormant/non trading company is the one that placed the order?"

Can your client look back at the original order?

How was it placed? Email, fax? Did it arrive on letterhead for the dormant co?

Did your client get any T&C's signed or agreed? If so what style are they signed as? Is it signed on behalf of the non trading co or another party?

To answer your question you can send an LBA to a dormant co, but generally you want to be pursuing a "live" company with available funds to pay...

Hi - many thanks for your response.
I have been back to my client hoping they will have some paperwork from their customer. thanks again, Chris

Contract is of the essence here. In the past six weeks I have initiated and taken a director to court in a joint and several action as his company was non trading, or he had reasonable knowledge that at the time of placing the order the company was unable to pay it's debt on time. The debt was circa £4000 and the process took around six weeks from start of action to a bailiff collecting the full sum, all our legal costs and around £300 of interest and internal costs.

We won uncontested because we are so tight on our initial paper work.

The contract starts at the first meeting. I will place a separate posting on this issue later, or maybe a separate article.

Ashley Smith wrote:

Contract is of the essence here.

Isn't it always?

Paperwork folks, yes it's a pain. No, no one likes to ask their customers to sign official forms etc but it has to be done!

Hi - thank you very much for your responses.
The current situation is that my client is still checking his paperwork and timing of the order vs company not trading.
I think this may take a little time.
I have taken on board the comments and will certainly encourage my clients to get the paperwork in place at the onset.
Thanks again, Chris