All too often I hear client’s say “Oh, I tried VCAT once and it didn’t work”.  In fact just this week I recommended a client to file a VCAT  Application against one of his customers that owes him just over $15,000.00 for some work he did in July 2011, and when I recommended VCAT he said almost those exact words, then told me the story about a tenant that he had that skipped out on some rent payments and the hearing didn’t quite go his way.

For starters, using VCAT for trade related debt is an entirely different scenario to rental disputes.  Secondly, with trade related debts VCAT is mainly only looking for two (2) fundamental burdens of proof 1) Was there an agreement between the parties to supply the goods and/or services and 2) were the goods and/or services fully received  by the customer.

When our client’s have supplied goods or services to a customer and they haven’t paid, in conjunction with our comprehensive debt collection process, we help our client’s file VCAT Applications, get their Orders for the debtors to pay, and then we assist them to transfer those Orders (Judgments) to the Magistrates Court to get a Court Judgment.  It’s the same outcome as suing them in the Magistrates Court, but for less than half the cost.

To date 99.9% of our clients that filed VCAT Applications got their orders, and in more than 60% of those cases our client’s got their money, and that 0.01% that didn’t get his order, it was because he didn’t take my advice and didn’t prepare for the hearing in the way that I recommended.

So in answer to my initial question “VCAT – Toothless Tiger or Effective Debt Collection Tool?”, the answer is that VCAT can be a very effective debt collection tool if used the right way.