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Directory of Locations and Courts

Help for using this search

What can you find in the index of towns and courts?

The index contains links between towns in the Federal Republic of Germany and the competent district, state and higher regional courts and the public prosecution services.

Please note that international procedure means that depending on the matter in dispute another purely local court may be responsible. As a result, in certain cases there may be divergencies from the results shown.

If a different district court is responsible for family matters, dunning procedures, judicial sales, insolvency procedure, commercial register matters and those regarding cooperatives, associations and partnerships, this will be indicated. Further transferences of responsibilities have not yet been included.

The responsibilities of the specialist courts (industrial tribunals, fiscal, social and administrative courts) are also shown.

More precise information on the competency of the courts can be obtained from representatives of the legal consultation professions (solicitors, notaries, etc) or the court registry of your local district court.

How can the search for appropriate agencies be made to produce quick results?

State the jurisdiction, the town where you live and/or its postcode.

Jurisdiction:

Use this selection field to restrict your search to the courts responsible for the selected jurisdiction.

Postcode or city name:

Please enter the postal code or the city name.

After the first characters you will be shown suggestions for selection. From this you can select their desired place name directly by clicking with the mouse. Alternatively, you can mark the suggestions with the Tab key and select them with the Enter key.

If the matching suggestions are not displayed, you can start a manual search with the entered search term using the Enter key or the 'Submit' button.

If no clear assignment to a court is possible, you will be directed to a refinement of the search query.

If there are several courts of the same type in one location (e.g. several district courts in Essen), the intermediate page at the end contains a corresponding note and the option to display the details of each of the courts.

How can I find out the appropriate authority in more than one town?

The search for several competent courts must follow consecutively, with the link between town and court remaining clear.

For this reason several queries are required in this instance.

How can a successful search for an authority be conducted speedily?

One option is to search for the courts or authorities in one state or in one particular town. The above explanations apply regarding the entering of the placename. A second option would be to search for particular authorities.

Not all combinations are possible. For example, the selection of district courts and federal agencies is contradictory, resulting in an error message.

In the search for all courts/agencies no information on the departments in the local courts (for bankruptcy proceedings, for instance) will be given. Carry out a specific search for this information if required.