SPAIN Law and Practice Contributed by: Alfonso López-Ibor, Pablo Henríquez de Luna, Virginia Jover and Pedro Echeguren, López-Ibor Abogados
No security for cost is needed when starting enforce - ment proceedings. The Enforcement Court’s order together with the enforcement application are served on the defendant. The defendant then has up to ten business days to oppose the order based on applica - ble grounds for opposing final judgments, provisional judgments or mortgage enforcements (Articles 556, 528 and 695 of the CPA). The court order declaring the initiation of enforcement proceedings cannot be appealed, only opposed or objected to, in order to avoid unnecessary delays. Opposing (objecting to) the court order of enforce - ment takes place before the First-Instance Court that dictated the order, and will not stay the proceeding, as a general rule. It is only possible for the court to decide to stay proceedings in exceptional circumstances (see 2.5 Challenging Enforcement of Domestic Judg- ments ). When the opposition motion is served on the party seeking to enforce the judgment, fast-track proceed - ings will take place. The judge will render a ruling within the next five days after the hearing, declaring the following: • the continuation of the enforcement order and attachment/seizure actions; • the stay of proceedings with potential attachment/ seizure actions; or • the dismissal of the motions included in the enforcement writ and, therefore, the lifting of attachment/seizure orders (if they were previously applied). This ruling can be appealed but it will not stay the enforcement actions already taken, except in very lim - ited cases, as listed in 2.5 Challenging Enforcement of Domestic Judgments . Domestic judgments and judicial decisions are imme - diately enforceable, as a general rule, regardless of any appeal, as follows: • final judgments are enforceable after a period of 20 days (Article 548 of the CPA) to allow the debtor to comply with payment (for example), except for
eviction judgments resulting from unpaid lease rent, which can be enforceable immediately; and • domestic provisional judgments are enforceable despite being appealed, as a general rule, except in matters listed in 2.6 Unenforceable Domestic Judgments . Representation by lawyers and court agents in enforcement proceedings is legally mandatory if the economic value of the enforcement process is over EUR2,000. 2.3 Costs and Time Taken to Enforce As a general rule, the debtor that is the target of the enforcement will bear the costs of proceedings for not complying voluntarily with the judgment within 20 days of it being rendered, and thereby forcing the creditor to start enforcement proceedings (Article 539.2 of the CPA). The enforcement creditor will only bear the cost of incidental questions (ie, substantiating objections to enforce the judgment by the creditor) in the following cases: Domestic Judgments Typical Costs Involved • on grounds of procedural defects (Article 559.2 of the CPA) – when procedural defects or faults cannot be rectified within the ten-day time limit, a court order shall be issued voiding the dispatched enforcement and ordering the enforcement creditor to pay the costs; and • on reasons of substance (Article 561 of the CPA) when the debtor’s objections to enforcement are upheld, such as payment, fulfilment of the judg - ment, expiry of the enforcement action, excess of amount sought, arrangement with creditors with documentary evidence, etc (Articles 556 and 557 of the CPA). The enforcement debtor will even bear enforcement costs if payment is made at the time of the request or prior to the dispatch of the enforcement order, unless they demonstrate that, for reasons not attributable to them, they were unable to make the payment before the enforcement creditor lodged the writ of enforce - ment, according to Article 583 of the CPA.
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