Just wanted to share this. I’ve been in business 20 years and have never done this before. I generally can withhold work and get paid so I haven’t had many people ghost my bills but there have been a few. In the past I’ve let it go because I thought it wouldn’t be worth the effort, but this one was about $1300 and I was just irritated by it.

It cost $95 to file and I could do it online. Another $30 to pay the sheriffs office to serve the defendant, and $10 because I didn’t want to drive the $30 to the sheriff and they told me “if you mail cash it will go missing” (which I thought was odd for the sheriff’s office to say) so I mailed it certified with return receipt.

I had a contract and it included 1% per month for overdue invoices. I included the late fee in the suit, and that amount about paid for the filing fees. It took about 2 hours to file. 75% of that time was because I hadn’t done it before and had to figure everything out.

One thing I hadn’t previously appreciated is that you have to file in the defendant’s county. This client (it was a company) is about 1.5 hours’ drive. So going to court would have been a hassle.

Tomorrow is our court date and he contacted me last night and said to email him a link and he’d pay and he paid it today. So I guess tomorrow I’ll call the clerk of court and let them know it’s settled.

Overall it’s something I would do again. Maybe I just got lucky. The travel part is something I’ll keep in mind on future jobs though.

Anyway I mostly just wanted to share with people who can relate. And if you have your own experience, would love to hear it.