The court registry explained by Sven Sobrie, attorney-at-law

Could you explain to us the court registry fees in brief?

Court registry fees are a sort of tax on conducting legal proceedings. Justice is a service organized by the government, and somewhere it is normal for the government to charge a kind of ‘entrance fee’ for those who want to use that service. Judges and courthouses also have to be paid. With the court registry fees, that cost is, at least in part, charged to the user.

And those court registry fees are recently modified.

Correct. As from the 1^st of February 2019, the system will change in two main aspects. Firstly, the court registry fees must now be paid at the end of the procedure, by the party who loses the procedure. After the verdict, he will receive a kind of assessment notice in the letterbox. In the past, the court registry fees had to be paid by the claimant at the start of the proceedings. If the plaintiff eventually won the proceedings, he could recover that amount from the losing party. A second important change is that the rates of the court registry fees will increase substantially.

So litigation becomes more expensive?

Correct again. The court registry fees vary according to the court in which the proceedings take place. For the Belgian Justice of the Peace Court and the Belgian Police Court this is a limited amount (50 euros), but for the Belgian Supreme Court you pay no less than 650 euros. Previously this was 40 euros and 375 euros respectively. For the Court of Appeal the court registry fee used to be 210 EUR, but has now risen to 400 EUR. You notice that the increase is rather limited for the lower courts, but for the higher courts (Belgian Court of Appeal, Court of Cassation) it almost doubled.

Do we have to search for a great philosophy behind the increase?

Not really, it is just a budgetary measure. The reform should add an additional 20 million a year to the public treasury….. .

The message seems to be: avoid legal proceedings …

In our profession the saying goes ‘better a bad deal than a good trial’. Legal proceedings cost, first of all, a lot of money – lawyer’s fees, court registry fees, service costs,… – and second, a lot of time, even though the legal backlog is gradually being reduced. It is also very difficult to estimate in advance how long a procedure will take, and (consequently) how expensive it will be. All these uncertainties ensure that conducting legal proceedings can be safely considered as a last resort, to be used when all the rest has failed. Although I may now be pleading against my own line of business. (laughs).

Summary

• The court registry fees will increase on February 1, 2019.
  • Justice of the Peace Court and Belgian Police Court: EUR 50
  • Court of First Instance and Commercial Court: EUR 165
  • Belgian Court of Appeal: EUR 400
  • Court of Cassation: EUR 650

• The court registry fees must now be paid at the end of the procedure, by the party who loses the procedure.

Sven Sobrie is a lawyer specializing in civil procedural law. He is the author of several publications and regularly lectures on recent developments in procedural law.

The court registry explained by Sven Sobrie, attorney-at-law

Could you explain to us the court registry fees in brief?

Court registry fees are a sort of tax on conducting legal proceedings. Justice is a service organized by the government, and somewhere it is normal for the government to charge a kind of ‘entrance fee’ for those who want to use that service. Judges and courthouses also have to be paid. With the court registry fees, that cost is, at least in part, charged to the user.

And those court registry fees are recently modified.

Correct. As from the 1^st of February 2019, the system will change in two main aspects. Firstly, the court registry fees must now be paid at the end of the procedure, by the party who loses the procedure. After the verdict, he will receive a kind of assessment notice in the letterbox. In the past, the court registry fees had to be paid by the claimant at the start of the proceedings. If the plaintiff eventually won the proceedings, he could recover that amount from the losing party. A second important change is that the rates of the court registry fees will increase substantially.

So litigation becomes more expensive?

Correct again. The court registry fees vary according to the court in which the proceedings take place. For the Belgian Justice of the Peace Court and the Belgian Police Court this is a limited amount (50 euros), but for the Belgian Supreme Court you pay no less than 650 euros. Previously this was 40 euros and 375 euros respectively. For the Court of Appeal the court registry fee used to be 210 EUR, but has now risen to 400 EUR. You notice that the increase is rather limited for the lower courts, but for the higher courts (Belgian Court of Appeal, Court of Cassation) it almost doubled.

Do we have to search for a great philosophy behind the increase?

Not really, it is just a budgetary measure. The reform should add an additional 20 million a year to the public treasury….. .

The message seems to be: avoid legal proceedings …

In our profession the saying goes ‘better a bad deal than a good trial’. Legal proceedings cost, first of all, a lot of money – lawyer’s fees, court registry fees, service costs,… – and second, a lot of time, even though the legal backlog is gradually being reduced. It is also very difficult to estimate in advance how long a procedure will take, and (consequently) how expensive it will be. All these uncertainties ensure that conducting legal proceedings can be safely considered as a last resort, to be used when all the rest has failed. Although I may now be pleading against my own line of business. (laughs).

Summary

• The court registry fees will increase on February 1, 2019.
  • Justice of the Peace Court and Belgian Police Court: EUR 50
  • Court of First Instance and Commercial Court: EUR 165
  • Belgian Court of Appeal: EUR 400
  • Court of Cassation: EUR 650

• The court registry fees must now be paid at the end of the procedure, by the party who loses the procedure.

Sven Sobrie is a lawyer specializing in civil procedural law. He is the author of several publications and regularly lectures on recent developments in procedural law.