How many days must pass for a judgment to become final?

Question

José Manuel Alburquerque · Accepted Answer

A judgment is final when it can no longer be appealed, because the law provides for no appeal or because the time limit has passed without anyone appealing. Against a first-instance judgment, the time limit for appealing is twenty working days from the day after notification and, if nobody appeals, the judgment becomes final when they have run out. As Saturdays, Sundays, public holidays, the month of August and the days from 24 December to 6 January do not count, in practice at least four weeks pass. If someone appeals, the judgment is not final until the last appeal has been decided. How the days are counted The time limit starts on the day after the judgment is notified to each party. If it is notified on different days, each party has its own time limit and the judgment is not final until the last one ends. In addition, the law allows the appeal to be filed until three o'clock in the afternoon on the working day after the last day of the time limit, so until then it cannot be taken for granted that nobody has appealed. For example, if the judgment is notified to both parties on a Monday and there are no public holidays in between, the twenty days end on the Monday four weeks later and the appeal can still be filed until three o'clock in the afternoon on the Tuesday. If the time limit coincides with August, it stops for the whole month. If a party requests a clarification, which serves to explain something unclear in the judgment or to correct an error, the time limit for appealing is counted from notification of the decision on that clarification. The time limit for requesting it is very short, two working days. When it is not twenty days There are cases in which a judgment becomes final sooner or later: If the law does not allow the judgment to be appealed, it is final from the outset. This happens, for example, with some judgments in low-value cases. If the judge gives judgment orally at the end of the hearing in a “juicio verbal” (the simplified procedure) and all the parties state there and then that they will not appeal, it is final at that moment. If they do not say so, anyone wishing to appeal must give notice of this in writing within five days of the hearing and the twenty days for appealing are counted from when the written judgment is notified to them. If there is an appeal, the judgment of the “Audiencia Provincial” (the provincial appeal court) can only be challenged in some cases by a cassation appeal, which is also filed within twenty days. If nobody files one, it becomes final when they run out. How to find out whether it is final The simplest way is to ask your lawyer, who knows whether the other party has appealed. When the time limit passes without an appeal, the court records this in the proceedings and you can request a certificate of finality (“testimonio de firmeza”), which is the document that proves it and is needed, for example, to register the judgment with the “Registro de la Propiedad”, the Land Registry.