January 2025

Decision of the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens on the Annulment of Third-Party Seizure due to Vagueness in the Tax Office's Seizure Notice

In our previous article (see here), we had criticized AADE's standard practice of proceeding with seizures against third-party non-debtors to satisfy claims against State debtors through entirely vague seizure notices.

Specifically, AADE serves pre-formatted seizure forms to third-party non-debtors, on which the head of each Tax Office or KEVEIS omits basic information, such as the legal relationship connecting the third party to the State's debtor. This practice, however, causes irreparable harmful consequences for the third party, who, not realizing that a seizure is taking place against them for another's debt, fails to make the declaration under Article 34 KEDE and becomes, themselves, a debtor to the State!

In this context, decision no. 2673/2024 of the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens was issued, which, accepting our client's Article 65 KEDE Opposition, annulled both AADE's seizure notice against them as a third party and the treasury certification of the State debtor's debt against them under Article 35 KEDE.

This decision ruled that: "[...] The seizure notice must primarily contain [...] the amount owed by the third party to the State's debtor and the legal relationship from which it originates, which must be stated concisely but clearly [...] These are essential elements of any seizure notice, since the third party who thus becomes a debtor to the State based on the presumption established by Article 33 KEDE, will not only take accurate knowledge of the seized assets and refrain from disposing of them but will also be able to make a clear and specific declaration under Article 32 KEDE (see Supreme Court 259/2020, 821/2018, 139/2018). However, the contested seizure notice [...] apart from the names of the concerned parties, the amount owed by the execution debtor, and its origin, regarding the seized claim, contains no identifying elements of its identity. Specifically, it does not mention that it constitutes rent, that it originates from a lease relationship and its amount, even briefly, resulting in lacking the legal elements that were necessary for the opposing party to make the Article 32 KEDE declaration clearly and honestly, and thus avoid the adverse consequences of Article 33 KEDE [...] Consequently, the present opposition must be [...] accepted, the contested seizure notice and the co-contested treasury certification must be annulled [...]".