General Terms and Conditions

Article 1. Definitions

For the purposes of these terms and conditions, the following definitions apply:

Unpaid: Advocatenkantoor De Groote - De Man, being the trading name of limited company in the form of a BVBA Advocatenkantoor Patrick De Groote, Crossroads Enterprise Bank no. 878.001.735, having its registered office at Heernislaan 91, 9000 GENT, VAT no. BE 0878.001.735, represented by its Business Manager Mr. Jeroen DE MAN.

Customer: The company within the scope of the collection procedure as described in detail in article 1394/20 Judicial Code and wishes to make use of the Services provided by Unpaid.

Parties: Unpaid and the Customer.

GDW: The limited company BVBA GDW-GENT, having its registered office at Kortrijksesteenweg 1038, 9051 GENT, and Crossroads Enterprise Bank no. 0808.505.886.

Services: the Services provided by UNPAID to its Customers, in particular the collection of non-disputed debts in accordance with the procedure described in articles 1394/20 – 1394/27 Judicial Code.

Dossier(s): The entirety of the debts/claims which a Customer has against a single Debtor which are transferred via the secure portal to Unpaid as a whole and at the same time.

The Law: The law of 19.10.2015 (Belgian Official Gazette 16/10/2016) concerning the collection of non-disputed cash debts, whereby articles 1394/20 – 1394/27 were inserted in the Judicial Code.

Debtor: The Customer's debtor, as referred to in the Law, to whom the debts/claims as mentioned in the Dossier relate.

Article 2. Scope

These general terms and conditions (hereinafter: "General Terms and Conditions") are applicable to the Services provided by Unpaid to its Customers via the website at unpaid.be.

The Customer has, by ticking the box on the website intended for that purpose, expressly and explicitly accepted these General Terms and Conditions and acknowledges that he is aware of them. The Customer's General Terms and Conditions are not applicable to this legal relationship.

Services provided by Unpaid or one of its partners, such as GDW, other than as mentioned in these General Terms and Conditions, are not within the scope of these General Terms and Conditions.

Except with express permission in writing from Unpaid, no deviation from these General Terms and Conditions is possible.

If any provision of these General Terms and Conditions is invalid, or is nullified, then the remaining provisions of these General Terms and Conditions shall remain in force unaffected.

Unpaid reserves the right to amend these General Terms and Conditions at any time by publishing a new version on the Website. Every order that is placed after publication by Unpaid of the new version of the General Terms and Conditions also implies acceptance of the said latest version.

Article 3. Authorisation from the Customer

By accepting the General Terms and Conditions, the Customer expressly gives authorisation to Unpaid, and to its partner GDW, to carry out the collections procedure in accordance with article 1394/20 Judicial Code.

The Customer shall, to that end, provide to Unpaid all data or information that is requested by Unpaid including (without limitation):

• Its data: legal form and name of company, registered office, VAT registration number, name and capacity of representative;
• Counterparty data: legal form and name of company, registered office, VAT registration number;
• The invoice / invoices to be collected;
• Its general terms and conditions which are applicable to the invoice to be collected;
• The non-disputed nature of the invoice to be collected.

The Customer explicitly agrees that Unpaid will pass on data or information about the Customer to GDW in accordance with the General Terms and Conditions.

The Customer undertakes, on the first request from Unpaid or GDW, to provide additional information or to inform Unpaid without delay of any change in the information that has been provided. If the Customer refuses to provide this additional information, Unpaid is entitled to terminate its Services unilaterally and Customer cannot make any claim against Unpaid in connection with this.

Unpaid reserves the right to alter all Customer data and counterparty data if it suspects that it concerns material errors.

The Customer is responsible for the contents of the data which it passes on, including confirmation of the non-disputed nature of the invoices to be collected, the applicable compensation provision and the interest.

All costs incurred by Unpaid or by one its appointed partners, such as GDW, on the basis of erroneous or incorrect data or information supplied by the Customer may be reclaimed from the Customer.

Unpaid is entitled to alter the compensation amount and the interest to a legal maximum in accordance with the Law, namely 10% of the principal. If no provision is made concerning compensation or interest, the Law on combating late payments in commercial transactions of 2 August 2002 shall automatically be applied.

At the first request from the Customer, Unpaid shall, as far as possible, after termination of the service relationship, provide a copy of the data provided by the Customer.

Article 4. Procedure

Unpaid shall automatically verify on the basis of the data provided by the Customer whether the Customer and/or the invoice to be collected fall(s) within the scope of the Law.

If the Customer and/or the invoice to be collected does not fall within the scope of the Law or the Customer's debt has already expired under limitation, Unpaid shall inform the Customer of this and Unpaid is entitled unilaterally to stop providing its Services.

If the Customer does fall within the scope of the Law, Unpaid shall send the invoices that are to be collected to GDW and shall then send a reminder to pay in accordance with the Law.

If the Debtor does not respond within one month and eight days after the reminder is served or requests payment arrangements or disputes the debt, GDW shall then contact the Customer for further instructions.

Article 5. Payment

The Customer must make a fixed payment to Unpaid for the Services of € 40.00 (excl. VAT), and also the costs of GDW for each Dossier.

Depending on the total value of the debt for each Dossier, the maximum payment to be made by the Customer for the Services (incl. the € 40.00 excl. VAT) shall consequently be:

Unpaid shall attempt to claim these payments from the counterparty.

This payment includes: the checks required by law as described in Article 3 of these General Terms and Conditions, the reminder served by GDW and also, failing a response from the other party, drafting of the official report that the debt is not disputed.

Other services provided by Unpaid or GDW do not fall within the scope of these General Terms and Conditions or this payment schedule.

Article 6. Complaints procedure

Every complaint or dispute of any kind must be served by the Customer to Unpaid in writing by E-mail at info@unpaid.be at the latest within five days after the day when the Customer has become aware of it, failing which the right to dispute it shall lapse. Unpaid shall attempt to make a formal response and propose a solution no later than two weeks after receipt of the complaint.

Article 7. Liability and Insurance

The services provided by Unpaid are considered to constitute undertakings of means. Unpaid undertakes to make every effort to ensure that the Services are provided well.

In every case the liability of Unpaid is always limited to the amount that is paid, where applicable, under the relevant liability insurance taken out by Unpaid.

The liability of Unpaid is covered by professional liability insurance taken out with insurer N.V. AMLIN EUROPE, with its registered office in Amstelveen, The Netherlands, Commercial Register No. 33055009:

Guarantee: € 1,250,000 per claim.

If for any reason whatsoever, payment is not made pursuant to the insurance referred to in article 6.1, all liability is limited to three times the amount billed by Unpaid and paid by the Customer in the relevant Dossier within the relevant year, with a maximum of € 15,000.00.

In all cases Unpaid's liability shall always be limited to the direct damages resulting from any shortcomings. Unpaid is not liable under any circumstances for any form of indirect damages resulting from the above-mentioned shortcoming. Indirect damage includes, inter alia (the summary is not exhaustive): all forms of consequential damage, loss of profits, financial or commercial losses, increase in overheads, increased staff costs, damage due to loss of customers etc. Unpaid is also not liable for any form of damage, destruction or loss of data or documents.

Article 8. Contents of Website

Unpaid takes the greatest care with its Website and the summary of the Services which are offered there. Unpaid does not, however, guarantee the correctness of the information. The Customer is also aware that the information presented is subject to change without prior notification. Unpaid is consequently not liable for the contents of the Website or for its use. If links are created to other websites, for example with the help of a search engine, Unpaid cannot be held liable for the existence or contents of those websites.

Article 9. Intellectual rights

All intellectual property rights concerning the information, signs, notices or other expressions that are displayed concerning the services and/or in relation to the internet site are the property of Unpaid or of its associated companies. Intellectual property rights are understood as all (a) copyrights, portrait rights, patents, database rights and rights concerning trademarks, designs, know-how and commercial secrets (whether registered or not); (b) applications for registration, and the right to apply for a registration, for any of these rights; and (c) all other intellectual property rights and equivalent or similar forms of protection that exist anywhere in the world.

The current database is the property of Unpaid. Except in the exceptions expressly determined by law, nothing from this digital edition may be reproduced, stored in an automated database or made public in any way whatsoever, without express prior permission in writing from Unpaid.

The contents of this database and the information obtained through searches must be for personal use only. This information must not be used in any way for commercial purposes such as mailings, creation of databases etc. If this provision is infringed, Unpaid reserves the right to claim compensation for this.

Every copy, publication, reproduction or other use of the database and the information, signs, notifications or other expressions contained in it concerning the services and/or in relation to the internet site is strictly forbidden without prior permission in writing from Unpaid. Recording and importing of the information from Unpaid's website and related services into a database are expressly forbidden. A number of names, signs and logos which are used on this site (including the name Unpaid) are protected trademarks.

Article 10. Privacy

Unpaid undertakes to handle all personal data provided to it by the Customer with the greatest care and confidentiality, in accordance with the Law of 8 December 1992 concerning the protection of personal privacy in relation to the processing of personal data. The Customer's data will be used exclusively for sending communications from Unpaid and/or to permit correct processing of the Dossiers.

If the Customer gives explicit consent for this beforehand, Unpaid may also send him commercial messages. The Customer may inform Unpaid at any time, by a simple notification, that he does not wish to receive any more commercial messages.

The Customer may request, correct or amend his data at any time or ask Unpaid not to use his data any longer.

Article 11. Applicable legislation – Competent courts

The General Terms and Conditions and, unless agreed to the contrary, all rights and obligations of the Customer, are governed by Belgian law.

In the absence of a compulsory legal stipulation to the contrary, the courts of the Commercial Court of Ghent, Department of Ghent, shall have jurisdiction.