Process costs: how does it work?

There are risks associated with litigation. The judge can reject your claim, then you have incurred costs for your lawyer or authorized representative and you are still empty-handed. In addition, you will usually also be ordered to pay the legal costs of the other party.

In this blog I explain how the settlement of the legal costs works.

Cost-effective?

A common misunderstanding is that the other party reimburses all costs if you win a procedure. 

Fully reimbursed

The costs that are in principle fully reimbursed are:

• costs for service of the summons;
• costs associated with attachments;
• cost of an expert.

Not fully reimbursed

This does not apply to attorney fees. These costs are not fully reimbursed. Except in intellectual property matters, such as a dispute over a trade name or a trademark right. The costs of legal assistance are reimbursed in accordance with a graduated scale. The amount to be paid in court costs depends on the amount of the claim, the number and type of proceedings performed. In the Netherlands you have to assume that a procedure will always cost you money.

Example process costs

You sue someone in court because that person does not repay a loan of € 50,000. After a defense has been lodged, the parties will appear before the court and ultimately the judge will give a verdict. You are completely vindicated. With a claim of € 50,000, a rate of € 849 per procedural point applies.

The two procedural acts you have performed (subpoena and appearance) are each valued with 1 point. This means that your other party must pay you € 1,698 (2 * € 849) in legal costs and the costs of serving the summons.

List of amounts

The complete scheme with the amounts per category can be found here .

Everyone bears their own legal costs

It often happens that both parties are partly right. In that case, you often see that both parties bear their own legal costs. The same applies in proceedings between family members. In that case, the main rule is that the court will not award an order for costs in favor of the party who is (largely) in the right.