New court fee rates: what has changed?

Court fee is a mandatory payment for filing lawsuits, complaints, applications and issuing court documents with a court of Ukraine, which covers legal costs.

This week, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law on improving the procedure for distributing court costs and court fees. The head of the judicial practice of the DE-JURE law firm, attorney Yuriy Kostynyuk, spoke about the changes that await us.

1. For individuals, a restriction on paying court fees in the appellate and cassation instances is being introduced, which allows you to save money when it comes to a dispute involving a large amount. Thus, when filing an appeal, a legal entity will pay 150% of the rate that was payable when filing a statement of claim, another statement and complaint from the amount of the disputed amount, and an individual or sole proprietorship – the same 150% of the rate, but a restriction has appeared: no more than 8 times the subsistence minimum (3028 UAH) for able-bodied persons for property claims. In cases where the subject of the claim is the protection of social, labor, family, housing rights (except for the right to property ownership), compensation for harm to health (except for moral damage) – no more than 3 times the subsistence minimum for able-bodied persons.
2. The court may exempt from paying the court fee those whose 5% of the amount of income for the previous year is less than the amount of the required court fee. However, this norm is of a recommendatory nature, and how it will be implemented in practice is currently unknown.

If you plan to file a claim with the court, contact “DE-JURE” – we have both experience and experts who keep their finger on the pulse of legislative innovations.