Opposition to Payment Order in Greece: Frequently Asked Questions – Complete FAQ Guide

Precisely because of the speed and surprise element involved — the debtor has not had the opportunity to present a defence during the proceedings — the issuance of a payment order is subject to very strict requirements. The most fundamental of these is that the claim and the amount owed must be established by a public or private document having probative value under the law. Since the payment order is issued without “hearing” the debtor’s side, it constitutes a strictly formal procedure in which both the creditor’s claim and its due date must arise from documentary evidence. The slightest formal defect in this procedure can lead to the nullity of the payment order.
Read more: Annulment of Bank / Servicer Payment Order Following Opposition (Updated)

An opposition to a payment order is the legal remedy by which a debtor challenges before the courts the validity of the payment order. A debtor opposing a payment order can, in addition to raising substantive objections challenging the creditor’s claim (typically a bank or servicer), also raise a wide range of formal grounds capable of leading to the annulment of the payment order. In the specific context of a payment order, precisely due to the strict formal requirements governing the procedure, formal errors frequently occur at the time of issuance; once identified, these errors can be exploited by the debtor to achieve annulment of the order.
Read more: Annulment of Payment Order against Guarantors

Pursuant to the changes introduced to the Code of Civil Procedure by Law 5221/2025, effective 1 January 2026, the authority to issue payment orders now passes to lawyers, which is expected to accelerate the issuance procedure. Furthermore, the grounds that challenge the validity of a payment order can no longer be raised in the subsequent enforcement proceedings, pursuant to the new paragraph 4 of Article 933 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CCP). In particular, this prohibition makes the payment order opposition trial even more critical than in the past. Accordingly, the debtor must react promptly by exercising the appropriate legal remedies in order to prevent enforcement proceedings against their assets.
Read more: Annulment of Bank / Servicer Payment Order Following Opposition (Updated)

The opposition to a payment order must be filed within 15 working days of service of the payment order upon the debtor. If an opposition is not filed in time following the first service of the payment order — or if the opposition filed is rejected on a procedural ground — the debtor may file an opposition under Article 633 CCP seeking annulment even before the payment order is served upon them a second time. Until recently, a debtor wishing to exercise the right to file an Article 633 CCP opposition had to wait for the payment order to be re-served. However, even in the latter scenario (i.e. an Article 633 opposition filed after a second service of the payment order), the debtor may now also request a suspension of the enforceability of the payment order.
Read more: Annulment of Bank / Servicer Payment Order Following Opposition

Under Article 630A CCP: “The payment order shall be served upon the person against whom it is directed within two (2) months of its issuance. If service does not occur within this period, the payment order shall automatically cease to have effect.” It is worth noting that any subsequent out-of-time service does not affect this consequence, which occurs automatically. If, for any reason, service either fails to take place within the two-month period, or does take place but is invalid — e.g. because the payment order was served at an address that turned out not to be the debtor’s residence — the court, upon an opposition, will declare the payment order to be without effect (Monomeles Protodikeio Patron 319/2024).
Read more: Annulment of Seizure due to Non-Service of Payment Order within the Two-Month Deadline (Article 630A CCP)

Under Article 623 CCP, a payment order may only be issued if the claim and the amount owed are established by a public or private document. The term “document” refers in principle to the original, i.e. the document bearing the debtor’s handwritten signature; the claim must be evidenced by a document submitted in original or certified copy. If the creditor submits one of the required documents — e.g. the original loan agreement — in uncertified copy, the payment order will be annulled on opposition for lack of written proof. Notable examples: Polymeles Protodikeio Irakleiou 52/2025 (uncertified photocopy) and Polymeles Protodikeio Patron 388/2023 (certification by an unauthorised liquidator).
Read more: Annulment of Bank / Servicer Payment Order Following Opposition

Very frequently, even where a procedural agreement (clause) exists and the bank does in fact submit an extract from its commercial books, the extract fails to reflect the movement on the loan account from disbursement to the date of termination. However, according to court case law, the extract must document all debit and credit entries throughout the life of the loan; otherwise the payment order is voidable. The Athens Court of First Instance (single-judge) in decision 3715/2022 (annulment of payment order for €125,000) held that the bank failed to prove that the extract submitted covered the period from the conclusion of the loan agreement to the closing of the account — meaning that the claim and its amount were not established by written documentary evidence.
Read more: Annulment of Bank / Servicer Payment Order Following Opposition

To facilitate proof of a bank’s claim, the vast majority of banking contracts include a clause providing that the bank’s claim and its amount are established by means of an extract from its commercial books reflecting the movement on the loan account. However, if this clause is absent from the loan contract and the bank nevertheless submits a commercial books extract, the payment order may be annulled on opposition for lack of written documentary proof. The Athens Multi-Member Court of First Instance in decision 1869/2023 held that, absent an explicit agreement that the amount owed is to be proved by the commercial books extract, “the submitted extracts, as private documents, lack probative force against third parties, meaning that the requirement of written proof of the claim is not met.”
Read more: Annulment of Bank / Servicer Payment Order Following Opposition

In most cases, termination notices of the loan or credit agreement are not issued by the Board of Directors but by bank employees, representatives of the management company, or lawyers — without any power of attorney being submitted (for the purposes of the payment order application) showing that the signatory was duly authorised. Although signing a termination notice by third parties is common practice among banks, the termination is void when the signatory’s authority is not established or when it is not ratified by the terminating party before the application for the payment order is filed — given that ratification operates only prospectively and does not have retroactive effect (Athens Single-Member Court of First Instance 12197/2023). The invalidity of the termination entails the invalidity of the payment order.
Read more: Annulment of Payment Order due to Invalid Loan Termination (Athens Court 12197/2023)

Very often, the application for a payment order is not filed by the bank itself, but by a credit servicing company, following the assignment of the claim from the bank to a special purpose vehicle or a loan and credit claim acquisition company. In such cases, the servicer submits a summary of the assignment agreement as recorded in the public registers of the Pledge Registry. However, the person applying for the payment order must provide written evidence of their active standing as the holder of the claim at the very time of the application — it is not sufficient to produce such evidence during the subsequent opposition proceedings (Athens Court of Appeals 298/2024; Athens Multi-Member Court of First Instance 3105/2020, for failure to prove re-assignment).
Read more: Final Annulment of Payment Order for Lack of Active Standing of Servicer (Athens Court of Appeals 298/2024)

In many cases, the original assignment agreement transferring the claim from the bank to the fund, or the original management agreement appointing the servicer, is followed by further supplementary or amending instruments. According to case law, the full set of these instruments must be submitted in order to establish that the applicant for the payment order is indeed the duly authorised person. The Multi-Member Court of First Instance of Viotia in decision 27/2025 held that, since the content of the amending instruments was not made known to the opponents, “it has not been fully and properly demonstrated that the foreign special purpose entity is the rightful holder of the disputed claim”, resulting in the annulment of the payment order.
Read more: Annulment of Bank / Servicer Payment Order Following Opposition

In many cases, as a result of unfair terms applied under the banking contract, unlawful charges are included in the commercial books extracts submitted for the issuance of the payment order. However, since no prior contractual or judicial determination of the contractual interest rate “at fair discretion” has taken place, the claim was not ascertained at the time the application was filed. The Multi-Member Court of First Instance of Lamia in decision 4/2022 annulled the payment order on the ground that the amounts owed, in the absence of a valid interest rate clause, cannot be determined before a court judgment is issued to fill the resulting gap at fair discretion (invalidity of floating interest rate clause based on non-transparent criteria).
Read more: Annulment of Payment Order ~€650,000 due to Invalid Floating Interest Rate Clause (Lamia Court 4/2022)

Banks, as financial organisations playing a significant role in the national economy, bear enhanced duties of care towards borrowers. In particular, following the introduction of the Bank Code of Conduct (BCC), a comprehensive framework of rules has been established governing — in a phased manner — the conduct that credit institutions must follow when a borrower experiences repayment difficulties. The Athens Single-Member Court of First Instance in decision 5095/2019 found that, while the bank had been engaged in negotiations to find a solution since May 2018, it simultaneously — on 9 July 2018 — filed an application for a payment order for €485,912.89, “constituting an aggressive act”, resulting in the court ordering the suspension of the enforceability of the payment order on grounds of abuse of right (Article 281 of the Greek Civil Code).
Read more: Annulment of Bank / Servicer Payment Order Following Opposition

The case of supplementary agreements. In many cases, supplementary agreements to the original credit/loan contract are concluded which introduce a material change to the terms of the contract — e.g. when the currency of the credit is changed or when the repayment structure is converted from a revolving account to an amortising loan. In such cases, case law holds that this amounts, in substance, to a new contract: it constitutes a novation of the obligation under Article 436 of the Greek Civil Code, resulting in the extinction of the old obligation and, simultaneously, the extinction of any security provided in connection with the original debt (e.g. guarantee, mortgage pre-notation). If, therefore, the guarantor does not sign the relevant supplementary agreement, they no longer bear any liability, since their obligation under the original contract has been extinguished.
Read more: Annulment of Payment Order against Guarantors

The filing of an opposition (whether under Article 632 or Article 633 CCP) does not in itself result in a suspension of the enforceability of the payment order. The debtor must also separately file an application for suspension of the enforceability of the payment order. The suspension is granted where at least one ground of opposition is found to be likely to succeed and, additionally, there is a likelihood of risk or urgency in the debtor’s circumstances. An Athens court issued an interim relief decision ordering the suspension of enforceability of a payment order of approximately €500,000; the nullity of the payment order was considered likely on grounds of abusive exercise of rights, given that the bank, while in ongoing negotiations with the borrower, simultaneously filed an application for a payment order.
Read more: Suspension of Enforceability of Payment Order (~€500,000) due to Abusive Bank Conduct