Write the Demand Letter Yourself: 7 Lines a Debtor Cannot Ignore
Applies in Hong Kong SAR
In Hong Kong no law requires a demand letter to come from a solicitor, and a letterhead is not what gets you paid. Seven lines do the work: the parties' full legal names, the contract the debt rests on, the amount and how it was calculated, the basis for interest, a dated deadline, the specific next step, and a delivery method you can prove. Two rules sit behind all of them. A claim founded on simple contract must be brought within 6 years (Limitation Ordinance, Cap. 347, s.4(1)(a)), and a written acknowledgment signed by the debtor — or any part payment — starts a fresh 6 years (ss.23(3) and 24(1)). If the letter fails, the Small Claims Tribunal hears claims up to HK$75,000 for a filing fee of HK$20 to HK$120, and no lawyer may appear for either side.
Does a demand letter have to come from a solicitor?
No. Nothing in the Limitation Ordinance, the Small Claims Tribunal Ordinance or the District Court Ordinance makes a solicitor's letter a condition of suing. The Community Legal Information Centre (CLIC), the public legal education service run by the University of Hong Kong, describes the demand letter as a step it is advisable for a plaintiff to take before filing — asking for rectification, compensation or repayment within a period that usually ranges from 7 to 14 days. It then adds the line that should decide how you write it: keep a copy, because it becomes "one piece of evidence" the plaintiff submits to the court later.
That reframes the whole exercise. A demand letter is not a performance of seriousness. It is a document a stranger will read months later — an adjudicator who has never met either of you, holding your invoice in one hand and the debtor's reply in the other. Every line worth putting in it is there because of that reader.
This matters most in the forum where a small unpaid invoice actually ends up. Section 19(2) of the Small Claims Tribunal Ordinance (Cap. 338) provides that no barrister or solicitor has a right of audience before the Tribunal unless acting on their own behalf. The forum built for a HK$36,000 debt does not let a solicitor speak for you at all. Whatever a solicitor's letter buys, it does not buy representation in the room where the debt is decided.
What must the letter actually contain?
Seven lines. Each does one job, and each has a weak version that almost every free template uses. The difference between the two columns below is not tone — it is whether a third party can check the statement.
| The line | What most letters say | What a tribunal can use |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Parties | "Dear Sir" | Both full registered names, with the debtor company's CR number and your own business registration number |
| 2. The obligation | "our services" | The contract, quotation or purchase order, identified by date and reference number |
| 3. The amount | "the outstanding balance" | Invoice number and date, the sum invoiced, payments received, and the balance shown as a subtraction |
| 4. Interest | nothing, or "interest will accrue" | The contract clause if there is one; otherwise, that you will ask the Tribunal or Court to award it |
| 5. The deadline | "as soon as possible" | A calendar date and a time. CLIC's usual range is 7 to 14 days |
| 6. The next step | "legal action will be taken" | The named forum and the fee to start it — Small Claims Tribunal, HK$70 on a claim of this size |
| 7. Delivery | one email | Email, and post to the registered office, with the posting receipt kept |
The right-hand column is not longer because it is more aggressive. It is longer because every entry is a fact somebody else can verify.
Two of the seven go wrong more often than the rest. The first is the name. You cannot sue a shopfront, a brand or a WhatsApp display name; you sue a legal person. For a limited company that is the registered name at the Companies Registry, exactly as spelled there. Addressing the letter to "XYZ Design" when the company is "XYZ Design (H.K.) Limited" tells a debtor with any advice at all that you have not looked them up.
The second is the deadline. "As soon as possible" is not a deadline, and neither is "within 14 days" without a start date the reader can pin down. Write the date and the hour. It costs nothing, it removes the argument about when the clock started, and it is the only part of the letter that creates a point at which you must either act or explain why you did not.
How do you state the amount — and can you add interest?
State it as arithmetic, not as a conclusion. A debtor who disputes a total will dispute it; a debtor looking at a subtraction has to say which line is wrong, and that answer is worth having in writing before anyone files anything.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Invoice INV-2026-0418 dated 18 April 2026, payable 30 April 2026 | HK$48,000.00 |
| Less payment received 15 June 2026 | (HK$12,000.00) |
| Principal outstanding | HK$36,000.00 |
| Interest at 8.000% per annum, 142 days from 1 May to 19 September 2026 (HK$7.89 per day) | HK$1,120.44 |
| Total demanded | HK$37,120.44 |
HK$36,000 at 8.000% is HK$2,880 a year, or HK$7.89 a day; 142 days gives HK$1,120.44. A claim of HK$37,120.44 falls in the HK$25,001–HK$50,000 band, so the Small Claims Tribunal filing fee is HK$70.
Interest has two possible sources, and they do not stack. If the contract or your invoice terms set a rate, that rate governs and you cite the clause.
If there is no clause you are not left with nothing. Section 33 of Cap. 338 lets the Small Claims Tribunal include interest on the sum awarded for the period between the date the cause of action arose and the date of the award — and section 33(2)(a) says it may do so whether or not interest is expressly claimed. Section 33(4) fixes the rate at the rate applicable to judgment debts under section 50 of the District Court Ordinance (Cap. 336), which the Chief Justice determines quarterly. It stood at 8.000% per annum as at September 2026.
Above the Tribunal's ceiling the power is different. Section 49(1) of Cap. 336 lets the District Court include simple interest at the rate the Court thinks fit, so do not quote 8% in a letter about a HK$500,000 debt as though it were guaranteed.
And the two cannot be combined. Section 49(5) of Cap. 336 bars an award of statutory interest for any period during which interest on the debt already runs. A contractual rate plus a further award from the court, for the same period, is not available.
How long do you have? The six-year clock
What restarts the clock — and why their reply matters more than yours
This is the part free templates leave out, and it is the most valuable provision in the ordinance for a creditor.
Section 23(3) of Cap. 347 covers a debt or other liquidated pecuniary claim. Where the person liable acknowledges the claim, or makes any payment in respect of it, the right of action is deemed to have accrued on the date of that acknowledgment or that last payment — and not before. The six years start again from zero.
Section 24(1) sets the form: every such acknowledgment shall be in writing and signed by the person making it. Section 24(2) allows it to be made by an agent, and requires it to be made to the creditor or the creditor's agent. A telephone call in which the debtor admits the debt restarts nothing at all. Whether a particular email satisfies the signature requirement is a question of fact and law on which you should take advice — but it is at least a document capable of being one, which a phone call never is.
A part payment needs no writing whatever. Section 23(3) gives a payment the same effect as an acknowledgment, section 25(6) makes a payment bind everyone liable for the debt rather than only the person who made it, and section 23(3) adds a detail worth keeping: a payment of interest is treated as a payment in respect of the principal debt.
So the strategic instruction is the reverse of what most creditors follow. Your letter is written to be read by an adjudicator. Their reply, if you invite it properly, is the document that restarts your limitation period. Ask for one.
How to invite an acknowledgment that counts
- Present the balance as a figure the debtor can confirm in one line, not a total they would have to reconstruct.
- Ask, in its own sentence, for written confirmation of the amount outstanding — separately from asking for payment. A debtor who will not pay this month will often confirm the figure.
- Offer an instalment arrangement in writing. A signed instalment agreement is an acknowledgment, and once it starts running every instalment is a part payment.
- Keep any reply exactly as received, in its original form. A forwarded screenshot is a weaker document than the message it was taken from.
What deadline should you give, and what comes next?
There is no statutory period for an ordinary demand letter. CLIC puts the usual range at 7 to 14 days, and the length matters less than the fact that it is a date. Give a short debtor-with-cashflow-problems deadline of 7 days and you invite a request for more time; give 14 and you have removed that answer in advance.
Then name what happens after it. A letter that threatens "legal action" names nothing, and a debtor who has received three of them knows it. Naming the rung — the forum, the ordinance, the fee — is the cheapest credibility available to you, and writing it forces you to check that you are right.
- Up to HK$75,000Small Claims Tribunal — HK$20 to HK$120 to file, and no lawyer on either side
Cap. 338, Schedule paragraph 1, and section 19(2). The limit has stood at HK$75,000 since 3 December 2018.
- HK$75,001 – HK$3,000,000District Court — lawyers permitted, and costs normally follow the event
Cap. 336, section 32(1). You may abandon the excess to stay within a limit (Cap. 338 s.9, Cap. 336 s.34); you may not split one claim to fit one (Cap. 338, s.8).
- Above HK$3,000,000Court of First Instance — no upper monetary limit
The expensive rung. Lawyers, taxation of costs, and a timetable measured in years rather than months.
- A company owing HK$10,000 or moreA statutory demand under Cap. 32, s.178(1)(a) — a different instrument entirely
Served in the prescribed form by leaving it at the registered office; 3 weeks of neglect lets the company be treated as unable to pay its debts. It is a winding-up precursor, and an abuse of process where the debt is genuinely disputed.
The fee bands come from the Small Claims Tribunal (Fees) Rules (Cap. 338B), in the schedule as amended with effect from 31 October 2024.
Is a solicitor's letter worth paying for?
Sometimes — and for reasons that have very little to do with law.
What it does not do. It carries no extra legal force. A tribunal gives it no special weight. It neither extends nor suspends the limitation period. And at the Small Claims Tribunal you cannot recover the fee, because legal costs are not recoverable there — which is the same rule that stops the other side out-spending you.
What it can do. It signals that you have begun spending money, which changes the arithmetic for a debtor who was betting you would not. It puts the file in front of a firm that can issue proceedings the following week without re-reading everything. And inside a company it routes the problem away from the person who has been ignoring you and towards whoever opens letters from law firms.
The honest test is arithmetic. If the fee is a meaningful fraction of the debt, and the debtor is a company owing HK$10,000 or more, the statutory demand you can prepare yourself is both the harder instrument and the cheaper one to threaten. If the debt is HK$36,000 and the debtor is an individual with no money, neither letter is the problem you have.
How should you send it, and what do you keep?
An ordinary demand letter has no prescribed method of service. That is a freedom and a trap: nothing tells you how to prove you sent it, so you have to decide that for yourself, before you send it rather than after the deadline passes.
Sending it so that the sending is provable
- Email the address you have been dealing with, and post a copy to the company's registered office as shown at the Companies Registry — not the shopfront, not the site office.
- Keep the posting receipt. It is the only document that fixes a date of dispatch you did not choose afterwards.
- Keep the letter exactly as sent, in the format it was sent, with the attachments that went with it.
- Keep any reply intact. Of everything in the file, it is the item most likely to be worth more than the letter itself.
The contrast with a statutory demand is instructive. Section 178(1)(a) of the Companies (Winding Up and Miscellaneous Provisions) Ordinance (Cap. 32) requires the demand to be in the prescribed form and served by leaving it at the registered office of the company. Post does not satisfy that, and neither does email. Where the law cares about service it says so precisely; where it says nothing, the burden of proving service lands on you.
The letter is your first exhibit
If the deadline passes and you file, the letter stops being correspondence and becomes page one of your case. In the Small Claims Tribunal the parties paginate the bundle — the claimant's pages numbered C1, C2 and onwards, the defendant's D1, D2 — and the demand letter usually sits near the front, because it establishes three things at once: what you said was owed, when you said it, and what the debtor said back or failed to say.
Section 16(1) of Cap. 338 requires the hearing to be conducted in an informal manner, which is widely mistaken for a hearing that runs on impressions. It does not. It runs on documents, and more heavily than a formal court does, because there is no advocate present to carry an argument the documents will not support.
Which is the argument for writing the seven lines properly the first time. The letter you send in month one is the letter you hand up in month nine, and by then you cannot improve it.
Common questions
How long do I have to sue for an unpaid invoice in Hong Kong? Six years. Section 4(1)(a) of the Limitation Ordinance (Cap. 347) provides that an action founded on simple contract shall not be brought after 6 years from the date the cause of action accrued, which for an unpaid invoice is normally the date payment fell due. An action upon a specialty — an obligation contained in a deed — has 12 years under section 4(3). Chasing the debtor does not extend the period.
Does a debtor's reply restart the limitation period? It can. Section 23(3) of Cap. 347 provides that where a person liable for a debt or other liquidated pecuniary claim acknowledges the claim or makes any payment in respect of it, the right of action is deemed to have accrued on the date of that acknowledgment or last payment. Section 24(1) requires the acknowledgment to be in writing and signed by the person making it, and section 24(2) requires it to be made to the creditor or the creditor's agent. A part payment needs no writing, and section 25(6) makes a payment bind everyone liable for the debt.
How many days should I give the debtor to pay? There is no statutory period for an ordinary demand letter. CLIC puts the usual range at 7 to 14 days. What matters more than the length is that the deadline is a specific calendar date and time rather than a phrase such as "as soon as possible". A statutory demand against a company is different: under section 178(1)(a) of Cap. 32, a debt of HK$10,000 or more neglected for 3 weeks after service of a demand in the prescribed form at the registered office lets the company be treated as unable to pay its debts.
They are disputing part of the invoice. Do I still send it? Yes, and say which part is disputed. A demand for a sum you know is contested reads badly later; a demand that separates the admitted balance from the disputed item invites an acknowledgment of the admitted part, which under section 23(3) restarts the clock on that part. It also narrows what a hearing is actually about, which is worth more than the wording of any threat.
Sources: CLIC — The demand letter before starting a civil action, Limitation Ordinance (Cap. 347), e-Legislation, Small Claims Tribunal Ordinance (Cap. 338), e-Legislation, Small Claims Tribunal (Fees) Rules (Cap. 338B), e-Legislation, District Court Ordinance (Cap. 336), e-Legislation, Companies (Winding Up and Miscellaneous Provisions) Ordinance (Cap. 32), e-Legislation, Judiciary — Interest rate on judgment debts, Judiciary — Small Claims Tribunal. Statutory references are to the Hong Kong ordinances as published on e-Legislation at the time of writing, and the judgment-debt interest rate is set quarterly by the Chief Justice — confirm the current rate and the current fee schedule before you put either in a letter. This is general information about procedure, not legal advice, and it cannot tell you whether your own debt is disputed.