After signing: the penalty and how long it lasts
A signed undertaking keeps working long after the money is paid. The law is built so that where the duty is to refrain from something, the penalty falls due on the breach itself.
✓ Verified: 11/08/2026
WHAT TO DO
› Details and tips
Write a one-page plain-language note of what is now off limits. In two years the wording of the document will be forgotten, but the penalty applies without warning.
Check not only the main page but everything that was copied automatically: shares, feeds, archives. The duty concerns your conduct, and pleading that it copied itself does not help here.
Useful Tools
- Verbraucherzentrale Legal
Consumer protection centres.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
When does the contractual penalty fall due? ▾
The law distinguishes two cases. Where the duty is to do something, the penalty is forfeited on default. Where the duty owed is to refrain from something, forfeiture occurs on the breach itself, with no further condition.
How long does a signed undertaking last? ▾
It is not tied to the length of the dispute and continues until it is brought to an end. That is exactly why the wording belongs before the signature, not after: an undertaking cannot be narrowed retrospectively.
What counts as a repeat breach? ▾
That depends on how the undertaking itself is worded. A broad wording captures more situations than a narrow one, and that is the practical difference between the form supplied and a modified version.
Is deleting the material from one page enough? ▾
Usually not. Copies survive in archives, caches, mirrors and with third parties. The duty concerns your conduct, so everything you have access to needs checking.
Can this be dealt with later? ▾
The undertaking does not lapse by itself. It belongs settled at the moment it is given — afterwards it becomes a separate and much harder conversation with the other side.