Statutory Demand

My company has been served a statutory demand but my accountant has only sent it to me, am I in time?

Regretfully many company owners have the registered office with a bookkeeper or accountant who they forget to advise when they move offices.

A Statutory Demand is a demand upon a company to pay an outstanding debt due to a creditor. It is considered served once it arrives at the registered office of your company.

Many close their offices from Christmas day for a couple of weeks or until Australia day. In my experience, on many occasions a statutory demand has been delivered to an office late Christmas Eve.

Once served you have 21 days to either negotiate with the server to withdraw the statutory demand or serve the creditor with a filed application to have the statutory demand removed in either the Federal Court or Supreme Court with an accompanying affidavit of evidence.

If this is not achieved then your company is said to be insolvent, that is not in a position to pay its debts when they become due and payable. On that basis the creditor can make an application to have your company wound up this results in a liquidator appointed to sell all company to repay the debt. I have had great success in defeating statutory demands but as The 21-Day Time Limit Is Inflexible you must ensure that you have constant monitoring of the mail arriving at your company’s registered office.