Lodging a claim in Czech enforcement proceedings: the Supreme Court insists on documents

A creditor lodges its claim for the distribution of proceeds from the auction of a cooperative share, relies on the fact that it is already successfully enforcing the same claim before another bailiff, and assumes that this proves enforceability. The bailiff and the court of appeal agree — and the Czech Supreme Court sends the whole thing back. This is the sequence behind resolution file no. 20 Cdo 1543/2026, which clarifies what must physically be in the enforcement file for a lodged claim to make it into the distribution of auction proceeds.

For companies that recover commercial claims and routinely take part in other parties' enforcement proceedings as lodging creditors, the decision is unwelcome in two respects. It closes the door on the argument "that claim is already being enforced elsewhere, check the register", and at the same time returns the burden of proof to where it belongs — the creditor. From now on, enforceability of a claim must be proven anew in each set of proceedings, regardless of how many parallel enforcements are already running.

How the dispute arose

Enforcement was ordered by the District Court in Teplice back in 2010 for the original entitled party's bill-of-exchange claim of CZK 150,538 plus accessories. It was based on a bill-of-exchange payment order of the Municipal Court in Prague of February 2010. A bailiff was charged with carrying it out and, years later, seized the obliged party's cooperative share; in February 2025 he knocked it down to the highest bidder for CZK 1,500,000. He then divided the proceeds among the lodging creditors and in May 2025 decided on the distribution — in the third group, he satisfied the lodged claims according to their ranking and pro rata.

And this is where the dispute began. The entitled party — the one that initiated the enforcement — disputed the claims of several lodging creditors. It objected to three different things: according to it, some creditors had not proven enforcement titles in qualified form (they were mere plain copies or attachments with invalid electronic signatures), one creditor had converted several documents into a single output of authorised conversion, and another lacked a confirmation of enforceability. The bailiff dismissed the objections. He stated that payment assessments are enforcement titles in themselves, the electronic signatures were valid on the date of signing, and the absence of a confirmation of finality on enforcement orders was irrelevant because he had not been served with any decision setting them aside or withdrawing the lodged claim.

The Regional Court in Ústí nad Labem upheld his resolution. It argued from practicality: if the lodged claims are already being dealt with in other enforcements where the titles were reviewed, insisting on qualified form would allegedly be excessive formalism. Moreover, the bailiff can verify the existence of enforcement in the Central Register of Enforcements, to which he has access, and can rely on the rebuttable presumption that the content of public documents is true. It relied on older case law according to which there is no need to insist on the qualified form of documents if the enforcement title follows from the content of the file. The Supreme Court, however, sees it differently.

What the Twentieth Chamber said

The starting provision is Section 336f of the Czech Code of Civil Procedure — it governs the lodging of claims in enforcement by sale of real estate (and, by analogy, of a cooperative share). Paragraph 3 requires the creditor to prove the enforceability of the claim being lodged. This is a procedural duty, not a mere formality, and it applies to each individual claim lodged separately.

In its resolution of 16 September 2026, the Supreme Court set out two points. First: the mere fact that enforcement is being conducted for the lodged claim before another bailiff does not prove enforceability. It does not matter whether this follows from the creditor's statement, from information from another bailiff or from consulting the Central Register of Enforcements. The relevant documents must be filed in qualified form in the enforcement file of the proceedings in which the sale of the real estate is being carried out. Only from that file does the bailiff, or the enforcement court, assess whether the lodged claim is enforceable.

Second: if the lodged claim lacks any requirements or the relevant documents are missing, the enforcement court proceeds under Section 43 of the Code of Civil Procedure — it invites the creditor to supplement it within a set time limit and instructs it that otherwise the claim will be rejected under Section 336f(4) of the Code of Civil Procedure. Older case law, according to which defective, incomprehensible or unclear lodged claims are simply disregarded with no need to invite the creditor to remedy the defects, was superseded by the amendment made by Act No. 396/2012 Coll., in force from 1 January 2013. The creditor thus gets a second chance — but must use it, or it will lose its participation in the distribution entirely.

Why "parallel enforcement" is not enough

The Supreme Court did not accept the court of appeal's argument that insisting on qualified form would be excessive formalism. The reason is purely practical. The bailiff conducting the auction and distributing the proceeds has no access to other bailiffs' files. The Central Register of Enforcements tells him that some enforcement is under way, but does not show him the enforcement title itself. He therefore cannot verify whether it really is the same, unchanged title, whether it has been set aside in the meantime and whether it is in the correct form, including the confirmation of enforceability.

The burden of proof lies with the creditor. If a court is to shift it to someone else — another bailiff, the register, a public-law presumption — it needs an express statutory basis. There is none here. The exception allowed by earlier case law (Supreme Court resolution file no. 20 Cdo 443/2005, R 49/2006), under which the creditor need not submit the document if enforceability follows directly from the content of the enforcement file in question, applies only where the title is filed in that specific file. Not where it lies with an entirely different bailiff conducting his own proceedings for his own claim.

In this context, the appellant also pointed out that the presumption of correctness of a public document cannot be used as a substitute where the document does not meet the prescribed formal features of a public document at all. A plain copy, a document with an invalid electronic signature or a document without a confirmation of finality and enforceability cannot be a public document — and without that, the presumption of the truth of its content cannot be relied on either. The Supreme Court accepted this argument and rejected the idea that the bailiff should himself search for information outside the file he is conducting.

For companies that routinely lodge commercial claims in other parties' enforcement proceedings, this means the end of a simplifying practice. "We're enforcing it elsewhere too, check it" is no substitute for an attached document in qualified form. Enforceability of a claim must be proven in each set of enforcement proceedings anew and by the creditor's own efforts. Debt recovery for businesses thus faces another procedural hurdle that cannot be bypassed with an administrative shortcut.

What about electronic signatures and conversion?

The appeal also raised two other technical questions that cause problems in practice. The first concerns electronic signatures. The entitled party argued that what matters is the validity of the signature at the time the claim is lodged, not at the time the document was signed. It relied on the opinion of the plenary session of the Supreme Court of 5 January 2017, file no. Plsn 1/2015. The court of appeal took the opposite view — in its opinion, what matters is the validity of the signature at the time the digital document was signed. This question directly affects creditors who lodge titles with signatures several years old: the certificate has often long expired, and if validity on the date of lodging were decisive, practically every older electronic title would be unusable.

The second question: authorised conversion. Act No. 300/2008 Coll., on Electronic Acts and Authorised Conversion of Documents, speaks of the conversion of a document in the singular. If a creditor merges several paper enforcement titles into a single output of authorised conversion from paper to electronic form, there is doubt whether this is a valid conversion output at all. The reverse procedure — from electronic form to a single paper output — is not even possible in the conversion software. The entitled party argued that such an attachment should not have been accepted at all and the claim concerned should not have been included in the distribution.

The Supreme Court dealt with both questions in this case in connection with its main conclusion on proving enforceability. The practical point is the same whichever way the detailed argument went: it pays to handle electronically signed titles carefully and to carry out each conversion separately, title by title. The cost of a new conversion and new verification is negligible compared with the risk of losing the entire lodged claim because of a procedural defect.

Lodging a claim in practice for a business creditor

If you lodge a claim in enforcement proceedings conducted by sale of real estate or a cooperative share, expect to have to prove enforceability with a qualified document filed directly in that file. A reference to parallel enforcement before another bailiff is not enough, even if the bailiff knows about it from the Central Register of Enforcements. We handle such situations as part of our litigation and arbitration practice.

What this means in practice when you read the decision through the eyes of a company lawyer or an accountant lodging claims against customers:

• Always attach the enforcement title (payment assessment, final judgment, bill-of-exchange payment order, notarial deed with consent to enforceability) in qualified form — i.e. the original, an officially certified copy or an authorised converted document with a valid electronic signature.
• Obtain the confirmations of finality and enforceability from the court that decided the case at first instance before lodging the claim. Catching up within a short deadline set by the enforcement court is unnecessary stress.
• If you lodge several titles, carry out authorised conversion for each separately. One converted output for a "bundle" of documents is risky.
• Watch the electronic signature certificates on older documents and, in case of doubt, re-sign the document with a current qualified certificate before filing.
• For payment assessments and statements of arrears, verify that they are materially enforceable in themselves — if they refer to other documents showing how the amount was determined, attach those as well to be safe.

The second point of the legal holding carries good news. If a creditor lodges a defective claim, the enforcement court must invite it to supplement it under Section 43 of the Code of Civil Procedure and instruct it about the consequences. The earlier harsh regime, under which unclear lodged claims were simply disregarded, ended with the amendment in force from 1 January 2013. If the bailiff rejects the lodged claim outright without inviting the creditor to supplement it, the creditor has a procedural argument in hand — even where it underestimated the preparation itself.

Where the risk lies

The decision does not change substantive law. It changes working habits. A company that has for years followed the practice "we'll send a plain copy and the bailiff will fill it in from the register" is today producing defects that at best end in an invitation to supplement and at worst in rejection of the lodged claim and exclusion from the distribution. In auctions with large proceeds and many lodging creditors, where ranking and groups are fought over to the last cent, this can mean losing actual recovery of hundreds of thousands of crowns.

It is also worth realising the second dimension of the impact. If a creditor fails to prove enforceability properly and its claim drops out of the distribution, room opens up for the other lodging creditors — those in the same group receive proportionately more. The entitled party in this case was fighting not only for procedural purity, but for the actual reduction of its share in the proceeds. The same applies in reverse: if you are a careful creditor and watch what others in the auction have proven, objections against carelessly lodged competitors may increase your share of the distribution.

The consequence is simple. Proving the enforceability of a claim is no longer a formality that can be passed to the bailiff or the register. It is the creditor's procedural duty, and whoever underestimates it will pay with lost participation in the distribution of auction proceeds.

Source: Resolution of the Czech Supreme Court of 16 September 2026, file no. 20 Cdo 1543/2026 (ECLI:CZ:NS:2026:20.CDO.1543.2026.1); profipravo.cz, 1 October 2026.