I received this question by email: 

A business owes my business money for products that we sold.  How do we collect our money and how do we find out if the business is closing? 

This is my answer:  You have a couple of avenues to collect a past-due debt.  You can try letters, phone calls, emails.  You can hire an outside agency to collect on your behalf.  You can sell the debt to another agency.  You can hire an attorney to collect on your behalf.  You can report the debt to the three credit reporting agencies (there is a fee involved).  You can always sue them in court.  Once you have a judgment, you have more options to collect your judgment such as seizing bank accounts and assets.  In addition, judgments are reported to credit reporting agencies for free.  Finally, if the judgment is large enough, the law permits you to force your client into bankruptcy.  

The best way to determine if a business is closing is to search the bankruptcy filings.  You can search all federal dockets through PACER (Register here http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/).  In addition, you can search the Department of State‘s business register.  All businesses (except solo proprietors) are required to register with the Department of State prior to conducting any business in the state.  Those same businesses are required to notify the state if they are dissolving.  (Visit http://dos.state.pa.us to search the business filings.) 

If the business is a corporation, it is required to run a public notice in the newspaper that it is dissolving. Most newspapers offer an online version of its public notices.  The newspapers in Pennsylvania have reportedly collaborated to form http://pa.mypublicnotices.com  You can search this site for any public notices about your client.

Do you have a legal question? Send your question to us at http://wp.me/PN9wo-gz 

Good luck.

Sharmil McKee |  Business Lawyer | blog@mckeeoffice.com