March 2024

Decision of the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Lamia on Annulment of Payment Order due to Failure to Submit Complete Account Movements

The decision No. 83/2024 of the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Lamia was published, in which our clients' objection was accepted and the payment order issued against them was annulled. Specifically, the Court accepted our claims about the issuance of the contested payment order without the procedural requirement of written proof of the bank's alleged claim. This was because the excerpts from the bank's electronically maintained books, which were submitted with its application, did not show the full movement of the accounts held for servicing the disputed open mutual credit account agreement, from their inception until their final closure. Conversely, the movements of the accounts held for the periods from 30.09.2013 to 13.06.2014 and from 31.12.2019 to 18.02.2020 were not included in the said excerpts. In light of the above, the Court ruled that the contested payment order was to be annulled due to a procedural inadmissibility.

Furthermore, according to the commented decision: "[...] In the application for the issuance of a payment order for the balance of the closed mutual account [...], it suffices to state that it was agreed between the parties that this amount would be proven by the excerpt from the commercial books of the applicant and that the related account was closed with a certain balance in her favor, which is proven by the full excerpt of the commercial books, in which the entire movement of the account from the signing of the credit agreement until its closure appears [...] If the claim or the amount thereof is not proven in writing, the judge is obliged under Article 628 of the Code of Civil Procedure to not issue a payment order. If, despite the lack of this procedural requirement, a payment order is issued, then it is annulled following an objection by the debtor, according to Articles 632 and 633 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The annulment of the payment order for this reason is pronounced due to procedural inadmissibility."