What Has Changed and What to Watch Out For
As of July 1, 2024, there has been a change in the legal regulation of payment orders. Not only can an electronic payment order now be issued for amounts exceeding CZK 1,000,000, but both regular and electronic payment orders can now be delivered through "fiction of delivery." This means that if the court sends a payment order to your data box and no authorized person logs in to check it, it will be considered delivered on the 10th day, and the 15-day period for submitting an objection will begin. If the fiction of delivery occurs on a weekend or public holiday, the delivery is considered to have taken place on the next working day. If you fail to file an objection in time, the payment order becomes enforceable and could be the basis for starting an execution process. Failure to monitor your data box regularly could therefore have costly consequences. In light of this change, we recommend thorough monitoring of your data box, even during vacation periods.
Benefits of the New Regulation
However, you can also take advantage of the changes in the regulation of payment orders. The fiction of delivery could be beneficial when dealing with non-contact debtors who have data boxes but do not check them. Under the previous regulation, it was necessary to initiate a court proceeding that could take several months. The ability to submit a request for the issuance of an electronic payment order for amounts over CZK 1,000,000 is particularly advantageous in cases where the claim is sufficiently documented and has a simple legal basis. This is typically useful in situations where someone owes you money from an overdue invoice.
The court fee for submitting a request for the issuance of an electronic payment order for amounts over CZK 20,000 is only 4% of the amount being collected, compared to submitting a request for a regular payment order or lawsuit, where the court fee is set at 5% of the requested amount.
Thus, the new legal regulation, in certain respects, strengthens the ease and speed of accessing legal protection in cases of non-contact debtors, while also making it more affordable.
We used a publicly available AI translation tool to translate this article from Czech to English. Please contact us if any of the above information is unclear to you.
