to enforce payment?

[Roadster]

What do you say if you need to get in touch with a lawyer to obtain payment from a customer? Is it:

We will have no option but to take legal steps to enforce payment of the outstanding amount. or
We will have no option but to take legal steps to secure payment of the outstanding amount.:?:

 

[emsr2d2]

I would say "legal action" not "legal steps". I'm not sure "enforce" or "secure" really fit.

We will have no option but to take legal action against you to obtain payment of the outstanding amount.

 

[Rover_KE]

Change 'steps' to 'action' and 'enforce/secure' back to 'obtain' and there's not much difference.

Rover

EDIT: Great minds think alike!

 

[Academic Writing]

Hi Roadster. I suspect that there will be some regional differences here, and even within regions, you might be able to use both. You might even find differences based on the type of payment.

Having said that, although either statement would be clear to me as a recipient of the notice, personally I would say "secure."

I am from NJ in the US and I do not deal with legal writing very often, so hopefully some others can weigh in with more information.

EDIT: I was writing at the same time as emsr2d2 and Rover and I like their suggestion of "obtain" (and the suggestion to change to "action").

 

[Academic Writing]

Also, if it helps, here is an interesting post on this issue: Chasing payment using a letter before action. You could then search for similar examples in U.S. English (that example is British and does not use your wording, but has some advice for this type of notice).

 

[Gillnetter]

What do you say if you need to get in touch with a lawyer to obtain payment from a customer? Is it:

We will have no option but to take legal steps to enforce payment of the outstanding amount. or
We will have no option but to take legal steps to secure payment of the outstanding amount.:?:

Either choice would work for me. I see a slight difference between them. If you take legal steps to enforce payment, you are trying to make someone pay according to an agreement (as in, enforce the contract). If you take legal steps to secure payment, you are mainly concerned with getting the money and other concerns are secondary.