Your invoice isn't waiting.
It's accruing.
Seventy-eight seconds on the interest meter Spanish law switches on for you — automatically, silently, and usually unclaimed.
Sixty days is not a suggestion. It's the law's ceiling.
B2B payment terms in Spain are capped at 60 calendar days. Whatever the debtor's purchase conditions say — 90, 120, "end of quarter" — the ceiling holds. At 00:01 on day 61 the statutory meter starts. Nobody has to send anything. Nobody has to agree to anything. It just runs.
ACCRUAL LEDGER · LEY 3/2004
The creditor sent four reminders. None mentioned the number.
Between day 61 and day 180 the Lyon creditor sends polite, then firm, then exasperated emails. Each one asks for €25,000. Meanwhile the law has been adding to the bill every day — interest at the ECB rate plus eight points, plus a fixed €40 indemnity per invoice. By day 180, €1,519 has accrued that the creditor has never asked for.
Perishables run a faster clock. Most suppliers apply the wrong one.
A second file on the same desk: a fresh-produce supplier applying the 60-day rule to an invoice the law caps at 30. Their interest started a month earlier than they think. On a Valencia agri-food invoice that extra month is leverage — and it's attached to every demand we send.
The burofax lands — with the arithmetic stapled to it.
The first formal demand we send is not a reminder. It's a certified burofax citing Ley 3/2004, stating principal, accrued interest to the day, the €40 indemnity, and a deadline. The debtor is now watching a number that grows every morning. Settling the principal has just become the debtor's discount, not the creditor's concession.
BUROFAX CERTIFICADO
CERTIFICADO
"Can we just pay the principal?" No. Article 9 says no.
Day 3 after the burofax: the debtor offers €25,000 to close. Declined. Day 7: they point to a clause in their own terms waiving interest. Clauses excluding statutory interest are presumed abusive and void under Article 9 — we send them the article. Day 12: they pay the full accrual. The negotiation was about arithmetic, and arithmetic doesn't negotiate.
€26,519.45. The €1,519 was always yours.
Transfer received: principal, interest, indemnity. The extra €1,519 isn't a fee or a penalty — it's what Spanish law says the debtor owed the moment they crossed day 60. Most creditors leave it on the table because their demand letter never mentions it. Ours always does.
The meter is running.
Make it work for you.
We calculate the accrual, cite it in the first formal demand, and collect it with the principal. Assessment is free; you pay only on recovery.
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