Admittedly, it is the extreme case.

Nevertheless, it apparently employs many savers who have asked the FAZ.

What actually happens in the end if, as a bank customer, when asked by your bank to reallocate your savings or to sign an agreement on a custody fee, you refuse or simply do not report?

Christian Siedenbiedel

Editor in business.

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    The Sparkasse Düsseldorf is working out a corresponding introduction of negative interest the hard way, especially for more than 3500 customers with large deposits, other institutes want to follow it or at least do not rule it out. After several requests to the customers, the Sparkasse terminated the accounts if someone did not report back. She recently deposited the remaining 2.43 million euros from five customers with the local court due to “default of acceptance”. They were transferred to an account held by the court at the Bundesbank.

    From there, the owners get the money back only a little laboriously, as the Frankfurt law professor Tobias Tröger says. However, the District Court of Düsseldorf points out that if the Sparkasse waives the right of redemption, savers can contact the depository directly for the surrender. They could get their savings back if they legitimized themselves accordingly.

    However, the filing with the local court is not unlimited.

    "The bank customers' right to payment of their deposits expires after 30 years," says Tröger.

    And when the customer claims expired, the deposited funds went to the respective federal state of the depository by way of so-called forfeiture, in this case to the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

    Then the savings for the savers are gone for good - the deposit ultimately goes to the state treasury.

    District court and savings bank confirmed this approach.

    Do you already pay negative interest at the district court?

    Many savers were still interested in whether negative interest would also be due at the local court or whether "waiting and doing nothing" - in an admittedly highly unconventional way - ultimately led to being able to deposit the money free of charge. After all, the Düsseldorf cases have so far been more than 250,000 euros each, but the Sparkasse is also looking at smaller amounts.

    Law professor Tröger says that a depository in North Rhine-Westphalia can set a deposit fee of between 15 and 255 euros "at its own discretion". However, on request, the Düsseldorf District Court stated that when depositing money the court only charges fees in the case of “complaints, notifications or copying costs”. There is no positive interest for the savers on the part of the court for the deposited amounts of money, nor are negative interest due. This is even expressly regulated by law for positive interest rates.

    However, the Bundesbank announced on request that it would, as it were, as the account manager, charge the district court negative interest for the high amounts. In the extreme case, it could total around 12,000 euros per year for 30 years. Law professor Tröger said that it is possible that these would then be billed to the savers as so-called "expenses" after all. Indirectly, through the reimbursement of expenses, savers would still have to pay negative interest, Tröger said. The result is the same as the central bank interest rate, the ECB's deposit interest rate is currently minus 0.5 percent. The Düsseldorf District Court also admitted that these costs, if they were incurred, could possibly be “deducted” from the depository assets as “expenses of the proceedings”.