Consulting on civil debt collection procedures according to legal regulations

1. Civil debt collection procedures

To collect debt by filing a lawsuit in court will take a lot of time and require a lot of legal paperwork. If you have tried negotiation or mediation but failed, according to Article 186 of the 2015 Civil Procedure Code, you have the right to file a lawsuit yourself or through a legal representative to ensure your rights.

2. Documents to prepare

To start a lawsuit, the plaintiff needs to prepare the following documents:

• Petition as prescribed
• Individual: Certified copies of the plaintiff's identification documents (ID card/citizen identification card, household registration book,...) of the relevant parties
• Legal entity: Certified copies of legal documents of the legal entity (business registration certificate, operating charter, appointment decision,...) of related parties
• Copies of documents related to the transaction such as invoices, loan papers, loan contracts, evidence of performance/non-performance of contractual obligations between the parties,...

All documents must be in Vietnamese. If in another language, they must be translated into Vietnamese before being brought to court.

According to Clause 1a, Article 35 of the 2015 Civil Code, the district-level people's court will have the authority to resolve disputes on civil matters. Therefore, it is necessary to submit the application to the district-level people's court where the defendant resides or works to have the application heard at first instance, applying Clause 1a, Article 39 of the 2015 Civil Code.

3. How to file a lawsuit with the court

To submit a lawsuit and related documents to the court, applying Article 190 of Law No. 92/2015/QH13 of the Civil Code, there are 3 ways to submit a lawsuit to the court:

• Submit directly to court
• Send to court by post
• Submit directly to the court's electronic information portal. The plaintiff will fill in all personal information, information about the lawsuit, sign electronically and click send to the court.

4. Processing time

According to Article 191 of Law No. 92/2015/QH13, the time limit for handling a petition is as follows:

• For petitions submitted directly, the court must immediately issue a receipt. For petitions submitted by post, the receipt will be received after 02 working days.
• Within 03 days of receiving the petition, the court assigns a Judge to examine the petition.
• After 05 days of examination, the Judge must make a decision to amend, supplement, return or accept the case for settlement.
• The court will request additional missing necessary documents within no more than 15 days.
• Within 07 days, if the case is under the jurisdiction of the Court, the plaintiff will be notified to come to the court to pay the advance court fees and receive a receipt.

The prescribed time limit for preparing for trial according to Article 203 of Law No. 92/2015/QH13 is as follows:

• The trial preparation phase of the case lasts for 04 months, during which time the court will prepare the case file, determine the status of the parties, determine the dispute relationship, collect evidence, etc. of the case. If the case has many complicated and difficult details, the settlement time can be extended for a maximum of 02 months.
• After 01 month from the date of the decision to bring the case to trial, the Court will open a trial on this case.

The time limit of a case shall be recalculated from the date the decision to continue the settlement of the case takes legal effect in case the case has a decision to temporarily suspend the case.

Thereby, the time limit to resolve a case will be about 06 months, if there are complicated problems arising, it can be extended to 08 months.