Unless you send the debtor a demand for payment at least 7 days before filing your action, the court need not award you the costs of proceedings, even if you win (Section 142a of the Civil Procedure Code). The notice does not have to come from a lawyer; you can send it yourself. Nor does it have to be a registered letter: under published case law an e-mail will do. A phone call will not.
One sentence and seven days. Section 142a(1) provides that a claimant who succeeds in proceedings for performance of an obligation is entitled to costs against the defendant only if, at least 7 days before filing the action, the claimant sent the defendant a demand for payment to the address for service (or the last known address). No prescribed form, no mandatory content, no limit to small claims. The courts read it as applying regardless of the amount in dispute.
An e-mail is enough where that is how you normally deal with the other side. The Regional Court in Brno so held in decision sp. zn. 27 Co 86/2017, published in the Collection of Court Decisions and Opinions under no. 142/2018: where the parties concluded the contract by e-mail, a pre-action demand sent by e-mail within the prescribed period to the address the defendant used in their dealings satisfies Section 142a(1). The first-instance court had refused the e-mail; the Regional Court corrected it, holding that a requirement of written form does not follow from the wording of Section 142a, nor from its purpose, and that the word „sent“ implies only that the demand must not be oral. So: no phone call, but e-mail is fine. Send it so that you can prove dispatch, and where you have so far dealt with the debtor only by phone, use a letter or a data box instead.
No. The statute speaks of the claimant who sent the demand and nowhere requires a lawyer. Send it yourself: say who you are, what is owed, on what basis, how much and by when. Bring in a lawyer once the debtor ignores your demand. The court will then award the costs of representation if they were reasonably incurred, and by sending the notice yourself you have saved both money and time.
It need not be the end of your costs claim, but do not count on it. Section 142a(2) lets the court award costs exceptionally even without a notice where there are reasons deserving of special consideration. The Constitutional Court has repeatedly struck down a mechanical application: in judgment sp. zn. I. ÚS 2178/15 it held that failing to take account of the true purpose of Section 142a, which is to prevent the disproportionate and pointless inflation of the costs of proceedings, is excessive formalism and breaches the claimant's right to a fair trial. In decision sp. zn. III. ÚS 2829/18 it added that the absence of a notice is, as a rule, no ground for refusing costs where the defendant fails to pay even after the action has been served. A debtor who has no intention of paying is not saved by your notice. But this is an exception you must plead and defend, whereas sending the notice in advance takes minutes.
In mass recovery of small consumer debts. In judgment sp. zn. I. ÚS 3923/11 the Constitutional Court described the so-called form action by four features: it is a small claim with no appeal available; the individual actions differ essentially only in the defendant and the amount; the claims arise from contracts with a consumer; and the consumer is in practice unable to negotiate different terms. In such cases the lawyer's fee will as a rule not exceed the amount of the principal claimed. An ordinary creditor litigating a genuine dispute is not affected. The Supreme Court held in decision sp. zn. 29 Cdo 4388/2013 (Collection no. 75/2015) that the court may not look in isolation at whether the claimant sent the demand, but must consider the other circumstances of the case, in particular the nature and amount of the claim, the debtor's attitude to it and the debtor's reaction to the action.
Send the debtor a demand for payment and wait at least seven days. State who you are, what is owed, how it arose, how much it is and by when it must be paid. Send it to the address for service, by e-mail where that is how you have dealt with each other, or through a data box, and keep proof of dispatch. Only then hand the matter to a lawyer. The purpose of Section 142a is plain, and the Supreme Court named it bluntly: to stop creditors who are not interested in voluntary payment but in inflating their claims by the costs of proceedings. Sending the demand shows you wanted payment, not costs. And if the debtor pays on the spot, you have saved yourself the whole case.
Source: Section 142a of Act No. 99/1963 Coll., the Civil Procedure Code; judgment of the Constitutional Court of 29 March 2012, file no. I. ÚS 3923/11; decision of the Supreme Court of 19 February 2015, file no. 29 Cdo 4388/2013 (Collection no. 75/2015); decision of the Regional Court in Brno of 9 November 2017, file no. 27 Co 86/2017 (Collection no. 142/2018); judgments of the Constitutional Court file no. I. ÚS 3228/15 and file no. I. ÚS 2178/15; decision file no. III. ÚS 2829/18. The links lead to the full texts (nsoud.cz, nalus.usoud.cz).
Under Section 142a(1), a claimant who succeeds in proceedings for performance of an obligation is entitled to the costs of proceedings against the defendant only if, at least 7 days before filing the action, the claimant sent a demand for payment to the defendant's address for service or last known address. Under subsection (2), where there are reasons deserving of special consideration, the court may exceptionally award the costs in whole or in part even if no such demand was sent. The softening thus sits in Section 142a itself; there is no need to go through Section 150. Older case law quotes the earlier wording of subsection (1), but the substance of the duty has not changed.
The Supreme Court put it plainly in decision sp. zn. 29 Cdo 4388/2013: the provision was added to the Civil Procedure Code in order to stop the practice of creditors who were not primarily interested in voluntary, out-of-court payment of their claims, but rather in inflating those claims by the costs of court proceedings. It follows that Section 142a is not there to punish a creditor who genuinely tried to get paid, but to catch those who use litigation as a business model.
Under the published headnote of decision sp. zn. 29 Cdo 4388/2013 (Collection no. 75/2015), when deciding on costs the court may not assess in isolation whether the claimant sent the demand in the manner prescribed by Section 142a, but must take into account the other circumstances of the case, in particular the nature and amount of the claim (to judge whether the debtor could, with ordinary prudence, be said to have merely „overlooked“ it), the debtor's attitude to the claim, and the debtor's reaction to the commencement of proceedings and service of the action. The Constitutional Court applied the same logic in judgment sp. zn. I. ÚS 3228/15: where a creditor made a reasonably required effort to remind the debtor and thus fulfilled the purpose of the mandatory pre-action notice, a contrary reading is so extensive that it comes into extreme conflict with the purpose and meaning of the statute.
Because of early practice which the Constitutional Court did not quash in 2014. In decision sp. zn. II. ÚS 3628/13 (a decision rejecting the complaint, not a judgment on the merits) the Constitutional Court recited the Regional Court in Ostrava's conclusion that the fact that the claimants had communicated with the debtor „by telephone or e-mail“ was not material, because a notice under Section 142a „should be in written form“, and added that there was nothing constitutionally objectionable in that conclusion. The claimants lost their costs in a dispute worth CZK 515,000. But the Constitutional Court did not itself interpret Section 142a; it merely found the ordinary courts' decision not unconstitutional. The Regional Court in Brno later held in sp. zn. 27 Co 86/2017 (Collection no. 142/2018) that the conclusion requiring written form contradicts settled case law on the interpretation of legal rules, and recalled that under Section 562(1) of the Civil Code written form is preserved for acts done by electronic means. Practice has therefore moved on from the first decisions after Section 142a was introduced.
In judgment sp. zn. I. ÚS 3923/11 (paragraph 27) the Constitutional Court identified four features: first, the proceedings concern a small claim with no appeal available against the first-instance judgment; second, the individual actions differ essentially only in the details of the defendants and the amount claimed (hence a „form action“); third, the claims arise from contracts to which a consumer was a party; and fourth, the contract or other basis of the claim is one whose terms the consumer is in practice unable to negotiate. In such cases the courts reduce the lawyer's fee, as a rule to the equivalent of the principal claimed. This is not a fixed cap: the Constitutional Court held that the ordinary courts „could conclude“ that such an approach was just, and that there would be nothing to object to in such reasoning. The decision rests with the court, which weighs the proportionality between the amount claimed and the costs.
Provisions cited from the current wording of Act No. 99/1963 Coll. (Sections 142a, 150) and Act No. 89/2012 Coll. (Section 562). Case law verified from full texts: Constitutional Court judgment I. ÚS 3923/11 of 29 March 2012; Supreme Court decision 29 Cdo 4388/2013 of 19 February 2015 (Collection no. 75/2015); Regional Court in Brno decision 27 Co 86/2017 of 9 November 2017 (Collection no. 142/2018); Constitutional Court judgments I. ÚS 3228/15 and I. ÚS 2178/15; Constitutional Court decisions II. ÚS 3628/13 and III. ÚS 2829/18.