Clarification of Facts in Austrian Enforcement Law

Abstract

Austrian Law provides enforcing creditors and enforcement courts with several alleys of fact-finding. Information regarding immovable property can be obtained from the land register, with notaries and lawyers having the option to access the obligor’s personal property lists. Salary execution is enabled by courts requesting the umbrella organization of the social insurance system to disclose existing employment relationships. In addition, the enforcement court – acting ex officio – can require the obligor to draw up a list of assets. This option is, however, not meant as a primary investigative tool but only as the last resort after a levy of execution or salary execution have failed.

Keynote Speech on the occasion of the International Colloquium in Kyoto “Effective Enforcement of Creditor’s Right in Civil Execution through Effective Discovery of Debtor’s Assets” on 6 November 2019. The presentation was based on my article entitled “Zur Effizienz der Sachaufklärung in der Zwangsvollstreckung“ in: Meller-Hannich/Haertlein/Gaul/Becker-Eberhard (ed.), Rechtslage—Rechtserkenntnis—Rechtsdurchsetzung, Festschrift für Eberhard Schilken zum 70. Geburtstag, München 2015, 763. The text has been edited slightly, in order to incorporate changes resulting from the recent amendment of the Austrian Enforcement Law in 2021, which left the fact-finding-regime largely unchanged but renumbered several legal provisions.