What happens if I win a court case and do not get paid?

Question

José Manuel Alburquerque · Accepted Answer

You can apply to the court for enforcement of the judgment, which is the procedure for compelling the losing party to comply with it. Once twenty days have passed since the judgment became final, a written application identifying the judgment and asking for it to be enforced is enough. The court searches for the debtor's assets and attaches whatever it finds, such as the balance of their bank accounts or the attachable part of their salary. You are paid out of what is obtained. In the meantime the debt bears interest and the costs of enforcement are, in principle, borne by the debtor. How to apply for it Enforcement is requested from the court that gave the judgment at first instance, now part of the first-instance court (“tribunal de instancia”), even if the provincial appeal court (“Audiencia Provincial”) later upheld or varied it. The law gives the losing party twenty days from the date the judgment becomes final to pay of their own accord. Once those days have passed, enforcement can be applied for. The time limit for doing so is five years, counted from the date the judgment becomes final and not from the end of the twenty days. If the losing party has appealed, there is no need to wait for the appeal to be decided, because provisional enforcement of the judgment can generally be applied for. With a judgment, the application can simply ask for it to be enforced and state which judgment it is. It is advisable to add any of the debtor's assets you know of, such as their bank accounts, their company or their properties, because that speeds up the attachment. As a rule, a lawyer and a court agent (“procurador”) are needed, unless they were not compulsory in the original proceedings, as in a “juicio verbal”, the simplified procedure, for up to 2.000 euros. What the court does The judge issues an order for enforcement and the court clerk (“letrado de la Administración de Justicia”), the official who runs the procedure, issues a decree ordering the attachment and the measures to locate assets. With a judgment, there is no need to make a prior demand for payment on the debtor. From then on, the court can do the following: Ask the debtor to declare their assets, warning them that they may be penalised if they fail to do so or conceal them. If they do not respond, it can impose periodic fines on them. Check electronically what the tax authorities, the Social Security authorities or the public registries hold on the debtor. It can also ask the banks and the bodies you name for information. Attach the balance of their accounts, the part of their salary or pension that the law allows, their tax refunds, money owed to them by others and their assets. Put the attached assets that are not money, such as a flat or a car, up for auction in order to pay you out of the proceeds. The debtor can only object within ten days of being notified of the enforcement and only on a few grounds, such as having already paid, provided they prove it with documents, or the five years having passed. Their objection does not halt the enforcement. What you can recover In addition to the amount in the judgment, the law entitles you to recover these other items: Post-judgment interest (“intereses de la mora procesal”), which runs from the first-instance judgment. It is the statutory interest rate plus two points, 5,25 % a year in 2026, unless a different rate was agreed or a law sets another one. The costs of the proceedings, if the judgment ordered them to be paid, once the court has quantified them. The costs of enforcement, such as your lawyer's and court agent's fees for the enforcement, which in principle are paid by the debtor even without an express order to that effect. If the debtor has nothing, the enforcement is not lost. It can be provisionally closed and reopened when assets turn up, because once it has been applied for it does not lapse.