PORTUGAL Law and Practice Contributed by: Joaquim Shearman de Macedo, Pedro Metello de Nápoles, Luís Heleno Terrinha and Ana Coimbra Trigo, PLMJ
against the debtor. It may take the form of standard legal proceedings (such as enforcement for the pay - ment of a sum of money) or special proceedings (such as enforcement in relation to maintenance). Standard legal proceedings may be of ordinary, summary or sin - gular character according to the purpose of enforce - ment and title of enforcement involved. Both courts and enforcement agents are responsible for judicial enforcement proceedings. However, Por - tuguese law also provides for an optional pre-enforce - ment extrajudicial procedure, conducted by enforce - ment agents, to which the creditor may resort when certain requirements are fulfilled. To enforce a domestic judgment, the creditor must file an enforcement application with the same court that handed down the judgment (as a rule, there are specialised sections of the court for enforcement pro - ceedings). The procedure can be summarised as fol - lows. • Submission of the application for enforcement of a judgment in the competent court. In this appli - cation, the creditor may appoint an enforcement agent. • The enforcement agent will be responsible for most enforcement tasks not assigned to a judge, such as summons, notifications, publication, database consultation, seizures and records of seizures, set - tlements and payments. • The choice of enforcement measures will depend on the purpose of enforcement (payment of a sum of money, delivery of a certain object, or per - formance of an act). In general, measures such as seizure, sale, payment, delivery of an object, and performance of the act by another person at expense of the debtor are available. As a rule, all of the seizable debtor’s assets are subject to enforce - ment measures (this includes real estate, movable property, credits, securities, bank deposits, and shares in companies). • In most cases (depending on the type of title) the enforcement measures will be taken before service to the debtor. • The debtor may challenge the enforcement request by raising objections to enforcement within 20 days from the date of the summons.
• Once seizures are executed, the debtor may object on the grounds described in 2.5 Challenging Enforcement of Domestic Judgments . 2.3 Costs and Time Taken to Enforce Domestic Judgments The length of time to enforce a domestic judgment may vary depending on the competent court, the pur - pose of the enforcement and the availability of seiz - able assets of the debtor. In general, a period of six to 12 months is to be expected to run the enforcement proceedings and execute the asset seizures. Commencement of enforcement proceedings is sub - ject to the payment of court fees, varying between EUR204 to EUR612. If the debtor objects to the enforcement proceedings or to the seizure, court fees will also be due, ranging between EUR306 and EUR612. In enforcement proceedings the costs borne with the enforcement agent must also be taken into consid - eration. The latter is remunerated on the basis of a fixed fee, acts performed and debt amount recovered. Fixed fees are low, but fees based on the amount of debt recovered are calculated on a percentage basis, ranging from 4% to 10%. Under Portuguese law, the appointed enforce - ment agent shall – prior to seizure actions – start by accessing the information available on the Enforce - ment Online Registry. This will serve to determine whether there have been past enforcement proceed - ings moved against the same debtor in the last three years and that may have concluded without full pay - ment of the creditor’s credit. When this has been the case, if the creditor fails in its enforcement application to indicate the debtor’s assets for seizure and if the enforcement agent fails in its efforts to identify those assets, the enforcement proceedings may terminate within ten days from the creditor being notified of this outcome. 2.4 Post-Judgment Procedures for Determining Defendants’ Assets If the Enforcement Online Registry provides no indica - tion as to past unsuccessful enforcement proceed -
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