Fragen & Antworten

If you file a lawsuit, court fees and lawyer´s fees become payable. The court fees are so-called flat rates, which depend on the value in litigation. For a value in litigation of for example € 15.000,-, the flat rates for the filing of the lawsuit are about €750,-. These fees can increase if for example several parties are involved on the one side. If you were granted legal aid as the person who files the lawsuit, you can be exempted from these fees temporarily.

The lawyer´s costs depend on the according fee agreement with the lawyer. If you have agreed on an hourly fee, the lawsuit of course costs the invested time, times the agreed hourly rate, plus legal VAT and the flat rate of the court. How long a lawyer needs for a lawsuit cannot be answered generally and especially depends on the complexity of the case.

With an agreement according to the Lawyer´s Fee Act (RATG), the tariffs for the lawsuit are fixed and are graded according to the value in litigation. For example a value in litigation of € 15.000 means the tariff for a payment procedure is about € 400,-. In addition, there is the so-called standard rate (= a percentage surcharge to the tariff costs), which covers the entire costs which are usually connected to the filing of the lawsuit (correspondence, telephone calls, conferences). The lawyer can also charge these supplementary services separately. The standard rate for values in litigation up to about € 10.200,- is 60%, above 50% of the tariff. In certain cases (e.g. in payment proceedings or appeal against payment summons), it amounts to 120% resp. 100%. If the lawyer represents several parties, or if he/she is confronted with several people (so-called joinder of parties), he/she can additionally demand a “Streitgenossenzuschlag” (surcharge for joinder of parties) of 10% for every first member of the joinder of parties and 5% for every further member, however a maximum of 50%. The sum is increased by a surcharge for electronic legal dealings (ERV), which is € 4,10 for a filing of the lawsuits without documents.

Sample calculation:

Filing of payment procedures in the amount of € 15.000,- against two people. The lawyer´s fee for the filing according to tariff costs €1.075,48 gross. This amount is composed of: € 405,60 (tariff) + € 405,60 (100% standard rate) + € 81,12 (10% Streitgenossen surcharge) + €4,10 ERV surcharge plus legal VAT. You still have to add the court fees which must be transferred to court at the moment of filing the lawsuit for the entire first-instance proceedings. In our case these amount to € 871,20 which means that altogether, costs of gross € 1941,98,- are payable for the filing of the lawsuit.