Introduction of E-enforcement in Croatia

The latest amendments to the Croatian Enforcement Act (Ovršni zakon, NN 112/12, 25/13, 93/14, 55/16, 73/17, 131/20) from 2020 introduced several novelties in the Croatian enforcement procedure, particularly with regards to the enforcement proceedings based on the trustworthy document (vjerodostojna isprava).[1] Pursuant to Art. 39.a of the Enforcement Act, the application for enforcement on the basis of the trustworthy document is submitted to the municipal court in whose territory the debtor has his or her domicile or has its seat, through the information system, on the prescribed form, electronically, in machine-readable form. Applications are automatically entrusted by the municipal courts to the public notaries, who act as court commissioners. Applications are distributed evenly, in alphabetical order of their surnames, according to the rules on the official area and seat of public notaries.

With the aim of implementing amendments on electronic submission and communication in the enforcement proceedings, Regulations on forms in enforcement proceedings, the manner of electronic communication between participants and the manner of assigning cases to a notary public (Pravilnik o obrascima u ovršnom postupku, načinu elektroničke komunikacije između sudionika i načinu dodjele predmeta u rad javnom bilježniku, NN 43/21, 94/21) were enacted and entered into force on 15 September 2021. Electronic enforcement is defined in the Regulations as a unique information system for managing and working on court cases, consisting of standard applications, computer and telecommunications equipment and infrastructure, system software and tools, and all data entered, stored and transmitted by this system from all types of registers in municipal, county and commercial courts, the High Commercial Court of the Republic of Croatia and the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia, in accordance with the applicable Regulations on the eSpis system (Pravilnik o radu u sustavu eSpis, NN 35/2015, 123/2015, 45/2016, 29/2017, 112/2017, 119/2018, 39/2020, 138/2020, 147/2020, 70/2021, 99/2021, 145/2021).

Applications for enforcement on the basis of the trustworthy document should be submitted via E-ovrha (E-enforcement) website https://e-ovrhe.pravosudje.hr. Applications need to be signed with a qualified electronic signature. Attachments to the enforcement proposal are submitted in pdf format and do not have to be signed electronically. Communication and delivery of application and documents to public notaries is done via E-ovrha and the E-notar application, information system of the Croatian Notaries Chamber in which all Croatian public notaries are included.

The procedure is even more simplified for the so-called big creditors, legal entities which regularly submit a large number of applications for enforcement based on a trustworthy document, since  E-ovrha enables transfer of their data from the existing information systems. Submitting applications for enforcement based on the trustworthy instrument in printed form is envisaged as an exception and solely for natural persons. Natural persons have the possibility of submitting the printed application to one of the branches of the Croatian Financial Agency (Fina), which will forward it electronically, in machine-readable form to the municipal court through E-ovrha.

The new system is expected to improve the enforcement proceedings by making it more efficient and transparent.

[1] For more on these novelties, see earlier post by Prof. Dr. Ivana Kunda and Martina Tičić, Novelties in the enforcement on the basis of trustworthy document in Croatia, published on this blog on 14 February 2022, http://blog.pf.um.si/2022/02/14/novelties-in-the-enforcement-on-the-basis-of-trustworthy-document-in-croatia/ (15.2.2022).

Dr. Eduard Kunštek, Professor at the University of Rijeka, Faculty of Law

Dr. Danijela Vrbljanac, Assistant Professor at the University of Rijeka, Faculty of Law

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.