Dear tanya,

Business debt is treated in the same way as personal debt.

The process of collecting debts for debt collectors is the same, regardless of whether it is business or personal debt. For example, notification process, filing for judgement or summary judgements in court, etc.

However, what changes depends on how your business is estabished. Generally, if you are incorporated, your personal assetts are, for the most part, protected from attachment. The business debt is treated separately from your personal debt. However, if you are "DBA" "doing business as" without any protections of incorporation, your personal assetts may be at risk.

I am out of town for the moment. I have a book in my personal library that talks about business debt.

I will forward you the information when I return.

ejohnson108@comcast.net

Dear tanya,

If you have not been served, it is not too late to contact the vendor for payment arrangements.

In fact, you need to make a record of all your attempts to reconcile this debt with the vendor. Copies of emails, witness statements, and records of conversations are important.

A detailed diary of the events would be helpful.

Also, writing a letter to the vendor, where you outline the dates and times of your attempts, and a statement such as:

Dear.....[name of individual], in the past we have contacted you regarding our debt of [amount of debt] for [services or prducts], to set up a payment plan.

We are grateful that you have allowed us to pay a part of the debt in the amount of [state amount] over the past [number of weeks and months].

However, you have lately refused to negotiate with us on this issue. We are attempting to make arrangement to pay the balance of the debt in terms we can both agree too. However, you have not responded to our requests.

We would appreciate it if you would contact us regarding the payment of the debt.

Tanya, this sample may not fit your situation exactly. However it should give you an idea of how to respond to him.

The only thing you need to be aware of is that by writing this kind of letter, while it proves to the court that you have attempted to resolve the debt and it helps the court to see if the merchant is unresponsive, it also shows that you acknowlege the debt.

It is a difficult decision, but if you acknowlege the debt, then the idea is to show the court that you have made a good faith effort to resolve it. Most courts, in rendering a judgement, do not want to see a small business go into bankruptsy or close up shop in situations where they are trying to resolve the debt but the merchant is uncooperative.

The merchant, in most states, must show good faith bargaining in resolving these kinds of issues before taking it to court.

The bottom line: Give it one more shot, but do it in a way that documents your attempt, and summerizes past attempts to reconcile the issue. You should also doucment the payments you have made to date.