The invoice went out in March. It came due in April. It is now the back half of summer, the account is at 120 days, and your last three emails have vanished into a silence that has started to feel deliberate. So you price out a lawyer, and the number lands badly — a meaningful fraction of the invoice itself. Then you do the arithmetic everybody does at this point, and it says let it go.
Before you do, run it again with the statute in it.
Texas is a fee-shifting state for exactly this kind of claim. Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 38.001(b), a person may recover reasonable attorney’s fees from an individual or organization “in addition to the amount of a valid claim and costs” on the ordinary run of invoice claims. That changes who is really funding the fight. But the fees are not automatic, and § 38.002 attaches a condition most creditors walk straight past: the claim has to be presented, and 30 days have to pass without payment.
What follows is the letter that satisfies that condition, clause by clause. It assumes you have already worked the account the ordinary way — if not, start with the basic collection sequence.
What Section 38.001 actually covers
A person may recover reasonable attorney’s fees from an individual or organization “in addition to the amount of a valid claim and costs” if the claim is for one of eight things:
- rendered services
- performed labor
- furnished material
- freight or express overcharges
- lost or damaged freight or express
- killed or injured stock
- a sworn account
- an oral or written contract
Nearly every ordinary unpaid-invoice claim lands in (1), (2), (3), (7), or (8) — often several at once.
Two phrases carry the weight. “In addition to” means fees ride on top of the debt instead of coming out of it. “A valid claim” means the fee request is derivative: it attaches to the amount of the underlying claim rather than standing on its own.
The 2021 amendment your template probably predates
Until September 1, 2021, § 38.001 permitted recovery from “an individual or corporation.” The Senate Research Center’s analysis of the fix put the problem plainly: Alta Mesa Holdings, LP v. Ives, 488 S.W.3d 438, 452–53 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2016, pet. denied) construed “corporation” narrowly in this context, concluding an LLC could not be held liable for fees under the section — and so foreclosed fee recovery from LLCs, partnerships, and other entities found liable on the listed claims.
H.B. 1578 closed it. The amendment (Acts 2021, 87th Leg., R.S., Ch. 665, Sec. 1) struck “corporation,” inserted “organization,” and added a subsection (a) defining that term by reference to Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code § 1.002 — a definition that runs from LLCs and partnerships through business trusts, REITs, joint ventures, cooperatives, and banks to “other organization,” for-profit or nonprofit, domestic or foreign.
The eight claim types moved to § 38.001(b) in the same amendment, and the bill’s applicability section limits the change to an award of attorney’s fees in an action commenced on or after September 1, 2021.
The same language carves entities out. Section 38.001(b) reaches an individual or organization “other than a quasi-governmental entity authorized to perform a function by state law, a religious organization, a charitable organization, or a charitable trust.” If your debtor is a church, a nonprofit clinic, or a charitable foundation, check that first — one of several places where the Texas rules governing commercial collections turn on what the debtor legally is. Separately, § 38.006 makes the chapter inapplicable to contracts issued by certain insurers.
Section 38.002 — the part that gets skipped
To recover attorney’s fees under Chapter 38, § 38.002 requires all three of these:
- the claimant must be represented by an attorney;
- the claimant must present the claim to the opposing party or to a duly authorized agent of the opposing party; and
- “payment for the just amount owed must not have been tendered before the expiration of the 30th day after the claim is presented.”
Read (3) slowly. Not when the invoice is issued. Not when it comes due. The clock starts on the date you present the claim. A creditor who lets an account age nine months, then writes a demand letter and sues the following week, has aged the debt but not the fee clock.
The statute prescribes no form for presentment — no magic words, no required delivery method — and § 38.005 instructs that the chapter “shall be liberally construed to promote its underlying purposes.” But presentment is a condition of recovery, so you need to be able to show it happened and when. That evidentiary reality, not any formatting rule, dictates the letter below.
The letter, clause by clause
Everything in the specimen below is invented. The party name, dates, and dollar figure are placeholders, not a real matter — substitute your own.
Sent by certified mail, return receipt requested, and by email, on August 28, 2026.
The whole ballgame for § 38.002(2) and (3). The date establishes when the 30-day period begins; the delivery record is how you show presentment occurred. Keep both in the file.
To: Meridian Fabrication, LLC, a Texas limited liability company, at its principal office, and to [registered agent name and address].
Two jobs. The correct legal entity keeps you inside § 38.001(b) — a d/b/a is a name, not an entity, so you need the individual or organization behind it. And § 38.002(2) speaks of the opposing party or a duly authorized agent, so addressing the entity and copying its registered agent covers both. Pull the agent from the Secretary of State record, not the invoice.
This claim is for materials furnished and services rendered under our written agreement dated January 12, 2026.
Track the statute’s own vocabulary — “furnished material,” “rendered services,” “written contract.” Stating the claim in the language of § 38.001(b) makes the category obvious to everyone who reads the file later, including the court.
The just amount owed is $14,820.00, itemized on the attached statement, net of all payments, credits, and offsets applied through the date of this letter.
Section 38.002(3) speaks of “the just amount owed.” Padding the demand with charges you cannot substantiate invites the argument that what the debtor tendered was the just amount. It also lines up with Tex. R. Civ. P. 185, under which a claim for labor done or materials furnished, or one founded on business dealings between the parties, “on which a systematic record has been kept,” is taken as prima facie evidence when supported by an affidavit that the claim is just and true, that it is due, and that all just and lawful offsets, payments, and credits have been allowed.
Because our agreement does not specify an interest rate, interest accrues at six percent per year under Tex. Fin. Code § 302.002.
This is the second 30-day clock, and it is not the same one. Section 302.002 provides that where no interest was agreed, the creditor may charge legal interest at six percent a year on the principal amount of the credit extended “beginning on the 30th day after the date on which the amount is due.” That runs from the due date; the § 38.002 clock runs from presentment. Do not merge them. If your invoice does state a finance charge, the stated rate governs — but check it, since § 302.001(b) sets ten percent a year as the general maximum “except as otherwise provided by law.”
If payment of the just amount owed is not tendered on or before September 27, 2026 — the 30th day after the date of this letter — we will pursue all available remedies, including reasonable attorney’s fees under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Chapter 38.
Compute the date and print it; ambiguity here is the most common way this clause fails. And note what makes the deadline moot: a tender of the just amount owed inside the window — the behavior the statute is built to encourage.
A systematic record of this account has been maintained in the ordinary course of business and is available on request.
A line for Rule 185, and a signal to the debtor’s counsel that a sworn-account posture is available: under that rule, a party who does not timely file a written denial under oath is not permitted to deny the claim, or any item in it.
What this letter does not do
It does not make fees automatic. Section 38.003 presumes that the usual and customary attorney’s fees for a § 38.001 claim are reasonable, and § 38.004 permits a court to take judicial notice of those fees and of the case file without further evidence — but only in a proceeding before the court, or in a jury case where the fee amount is submitted to the court by agreement. And § 38.003 says in terms that the presumption “may be rebutted.” Reasonableness stays contested.
What the letter does is narrower and still worth a great deal: it removes the debtor’s best argument for waiting — that dragging this out costs you more than it costs them.
A footnote for the construction trades. Section 38.0015, added by a separate 2021 bill, permits recovery of reasonable attorney’s fees as compensatory damages for breach of a construction contract as defined by Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 130.001 — the definition inside the same code, not the Property Code — from an entity from which recovery is permitted under § 38.001. Subsection (b) adds that it creates no independent basis to recover fees.
The two dates to calendar
| Date | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Presentment date + 30 days | The § 38.002(3) condition turns on the 30th day passing without a tender of the just amount owed |
| Accrual date + 4 years | Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.004(a)(3) requires suit on a debt not later than four years after the day the cause of action accrues |
The four-year date is the one that ends files. Every month an account sits in a folder is a month of that period spent, and waiting improves nothing — not the debtor’s balance sheet, not the memory of whoever signed the purchase order.
Is any of this worth it on a $10,000 invoice?
Venue matters as much as math. A Texas justice court has original jurisdiction over civil matters in which the amount in controversy is not more than $20,000, exclusive of interest (Tex. Gov’t Code § 27.031(a)(1)), and § 27.031(d) provides that a corporation need not be represented by an attorney there.
The catch is § 38.002(1): Chapter 38 fees require representation by an attorney, so the self-represented justice-court route and the fee-shifting route pull against each other. Decide that deliberately — it is the same calculation behind in-house collections versus placing the file, when an account should leave your desk, and what an agency changes.
What to do this week
- Confirm the entity. Pull the debtor’s exact legal name and current registered agent from the Secretary of State.
- Check the carve-outs. Religious, charitable, quasi-governmental, or an insurer under § 38.006 — if any apply, the fee theory changes.
- Rebuild the ledger. Invoices, delivery records, signed acknowledgments, payment history, every credit applied. This is the “systematic record” Rule 185 describes.
- Send the letter, dated, with proof of delivery. Then calendar the 30th day and the four-year limitations date together.
Step three is where these files stall, and it is what separates a claim from a story. If the ledger holds up and the account still will not move, a demand from outside your own letterhead is the next lever, and enforcement through licensed collection attorneys after that. Alexander, Strauss & Associates has worked commercial accounts like these for more than 25 years; the fee is agreed before anything is placed.
Whether your contract, entity, and timeline support a Chapter 38 fee claim is fact-specific. Take the ledger and the letter to a Texas commercial litigator before you file.
General information for commercial creditors, not legal advice. Laws and deadlines change and depend on the facts — confirm specifics with qualified counsel.