Seizing without a judgment: what the enforceable notarial act changes
Practical tips to reduce unpaid invoices — and to decide when to escalate.
Here is the most common situation in commercial collection. Your customer does not pay. After a few reminders they finally admit the debt and propose instalments: $5,000 a month for six months. You sign an acknowledgment of debt, relieved.
Three months later the payments stop.
You now hold a nicely signed acknowledgment of debt — and nothing else. To enforce it you have to start over: originating application, service, delays, hearing. Months, and thousands of dollars, to establish a debt the debtor had already admitted in writing.
Since 1 September 2026, that detour is no longer compulsory.
What changed
Article 1603.1 of the Civil Code of Québec, introduced by the Act to modernize the notarial profession and to promote access to justice (Bill 34, S.Q. 2023, c. 23, assented to 24 October 2023), allows an obligation recorded in a notarial act to give rise to forced execution without a judgment.
The regulation setting out the procedure — the Regulation respecting the forced execution of payment of a claim resulting from the non-performance of an obligation recorded in a notarial act — was published on 18 March 2026 and has been in force since 1 September 2026.
In practice: the same acknowledgment of debt, signed before a notary instead of across a desk, gives you the right to proceed directly to seizure.
How it works
The mechanism is deliberately simple.
1. The act
The debtor signs, before a notary, an act en minute recording the debt. Three elements must appear in it:
- an express stipulation that the obligation is susceptible of forced execution under article 1603.1 C.C.Q.;
- the debtor's consent to be subject, on default, to a payment order from the creditor or its successor;
- a summary description of the procedure set out in the regulation.
That last point is not administrative. It exists so the debtor understands what they are consenting to. An act that omits it misses its target.
2. Default, then the payment order
The debtor stops paying. You instruct a bailiff, who serves a payment order on the debtor together with your declaration attesting to the validity of the claim — deemed to be made under oath — and a contestation form.
3. The 30-day period
The debtor has thirty days to pay or to contest by applying to the court. If they contest, a court file opens and the court decides: you are back at the starting line, but they had to take the first step. If they do nothing, the payment order becomes enforceable and you proceed to seizure under the ordinary rules.
Compare that timetable to an ordinary action. It is the difference between thirty days and a year.
What does not qualify
Not every claim is eligible. The regulation excludes, among others:
- non-monetary obligations — this mechanism exists to obtain payment, not to compel performance;
- obligations not directly related to the juridical act the notarial act contains;
- obligations that are not determined or determinable under the act;
- obligations subject to arbitration in case of dispute, whether by law or under the act itself;
- obligations of the State, its bodies and legal persons established in the public interest;
- obligations for which the law provides another particular mode of execution, subject to exceptions.
When the trip to the notary is worth it
Not always. A notarial act costs more than an acknowledgment signed in your own offices, and it requires the debtor to agree to attend. It becomes worthwhile in four situations.
The instalment arrangement. This is the typical case. You agree to spread out a debt the debtor admits. The risk is not that they will contest it: it is that they will stop paying. The notarial act turns that risk into a thirty-day formality.
The amount justifies it. On a $5,000 claim, notarial fees weigh heavily. On $60,000 spread over a year, they are trivial next to litigation.
The debtor has identifiable assets. A bank account, equipment, receivables. Fast execution is only worth something if there is something to seize.
The debtor wants to avoid court. Often that is exactly why they are signing. You offer time; they offer security. The exchange is balanced and negotiates well.
What to change in how you work
If you negotiate payment arrangements regularly, one question belongs in your process: does this particular arrangement deserve to be notarized?
For the files where the answer is yes, build it into the negotiation — not afterwards. A debtor agrees to visit a notary far more readily when it is a condition of the instalment plan than when asked once the deal is done.
And have the act drafted by someone who knows the exclusions. An act that omits the forced-execution stipulation, or that incorporates an arbitration clause buried in your terms of sale, leaves you exactly where you started: with a handsome document and a lawsuit to bring.