Die Förmliche Zustellung

… or my second day in court

A few weeks ago I was called to appear as a witness at a local court. I’m not going to go into the details of the case, but I learnt a new part of the postal service in the process.  The “förmliche Zustellung”.

We’ve spoken before about the different options for sending post in Germany, ie. the Einschreiben for proof of sending, the Rückschein for recorded delivery and even options like the Einschreiben eigenhändig to ensure that only the receipient signs for something.

But the court has another option, that I was unaware of until now.

Förmliche ZustellungThe förmliche Zustellung comes in a yellow envelope. On the envelope there is space for the postal worker who puts it into the letter box to write the date on it. This is the date that it went into the letter box, and the court is then informed that the post has been delivered.

There is no notification like with the Einschreiben. If I understand it correctly, the letter is considered to have been received, and if you don’t check your post box regularly or are on holiday then that’s your problem.

I guess this gets round the problem of people refusing to sign when they see who the envelope is from, but I do wonder what would happen if I had been out of the country for a few weeks, or even if the postman had put it into the wrong letter box by mistake.

Post Pack

The “Post Pack” is a collection of 6 transcripts, each in their own PDF file. The pack is a ZIP file containing the 6 PDFs and is available from the AllThingsGerman Download Store.

The transcripts in this pack are:

To find out more, visit the AllThingsGerman Download Store.

Briefkästen

Briefkästen scheint es in vielen Variationen von Formen und Größen zu geben. An der Straßenecke sieht man die amtlichen – die gelben stabilen – ähnlich wie in Großbritannien. Und dann sind da noch welche aus Plastik die man oft an der Tür eines Supermarktes sieht.

Da man öfter  in Läden mit Postkarten auch Briefmarken kaufen kann, ist es eine logische Ergänzung, dass sie auch ihren eigenen Briefkasten haben. Obwohl nicht viel darüber gesagt wird, wie oft sie geleert werden.

Hier ist eine Auswahl von Briefkästen die wir gesehen haben:

Street corner postbox on Lanzarote
Der amtliche Briefkasten an der Straße
In the entrance to a supermarket
Der Eingang zu einem Supermarkt
The mini in-store version
Die Mini-Version in einem Laden

Kennen Sie noch andere Arten von Briefkästen?

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