Decision no. 52/2025 of the Multi-Member Court of First Instance of Heraklion was recently issued. By upholding the relevant opposition pursuant to Article 632 of the Greek Code of Civil Procedure, the Court annulled a payment order issued against our clients concerning an alleged debt arising from a credit agreement with an open (revolving) current account, amounting to approximately one million euros, due to lack of written evidence of the claim.
More specifically, the Court held that the opposing party – the credit institution – failed to submit, for the issuance of the contested payment order, a certified copy of the account statements relating to the credit agreement in question, and entirely omitted to produce the transaction history of one of the accounts maintained under the said agreement. It is also noteworthy that the Court ruled that the fact that the account which the opposing party entirely failed to produce had a zero balance was legally irrelevant.
The decisive passages of the judgment state verbatim as follows:
“However, the said extract was produced as a photocopy of the original printout from the commercial books, which (printout) bore the signatures of two employees of the defendant bank, without bearing certification by an attorney-at-law. It is noted that in the upper right corner and below the printing date there appears the indication ‘PAGE 4’ (document no. 19 of the applicants). From the above it follows that the extracts, which were derived from the commercial books of the defendant bank and reflect the transactions of the secured servicing accounts numbered XXXX.XXX.XXXXXXXX and XXXX.XXX.XXXXXXXX and of the default accounts numbered 0026.0133.0300055786 and XXXX.XXX.XXXXXXXX, to which, following final closure, the balances of €22,790.85 and €794,948.07 respectively were transferred, which together with the interest constitute the total debt, were submitted as simple photocopies of the originals and not as copies certified by an attorney (Article 32 of Law 4194/2013). Consequently, they have not acquired the evidentiary force of an original document and, therefore, cannot support the issuance of a payment order.”
“Furthermore, upon filing the application for the issuance of the payment order, no extract from the commercial books kept by the bank was submitted reflecting the detailed transactions of account no. XXXX.XXX.XXXXXXXX, which was maintained for the servicing of the credit facility for the period after 01.10.2012, nor was it shown that this account was periodically closed and that the applicants acknowledged the interim balance arising, as stated above, from the debt acknowledgment dated 01.10.2012 (duly submitted by the bank). From the submitted extracts it does not appear the full movement of the credit facility and of all current accounts maintained for its operation until their closure and the termination of the credit agreement, since no extract reflecting the transactions of that account was produced, but only the movements of the other two accounts numbered XXXX.XXX.XXXXXXXX and XXXX.XXX.XXXXXXXX and of the default accounts numbered XXXX.XXX.XXXXXXXX and XXXX.XXX.XXXXXXXX, to which the final balances of the first two accounts were respectively transferred following their definitive closure.
The second and third of the respondents argued that submission of an extract of the above-mentioned account no. XXXX.XXX.XXXXXXXX was not necessary for the issuance of the payment order, as it had allegedly been brought to a zero balance following payment of €403.90. However, that argument is unfounded and must be rejected, since the fact that the balance of the above account was zero does not render its transaction extract unnecessary, as such extract would demonstrate the amount of the balance at that time (Athens Court of Appeal 687/2022), nor does it remedy the absence of the transaction history of the account maintained after 01.10.2012, as from that history it would be verified whether the account was indeed zero at that time and not debit or credit in nature. It should be noted that this does not concern a loan, where a zero balance would constitute repayment, but a credit agreement with an open current account.”
For further information regarding the issuance of payment orders by credit institutions/servicers and the grounds for their annulment, please refer to our related article here.
