The regime governing appellate filing fees (“preparo recursal”) under the 2015 Code of Civil Procedure (CPC) sought to move away from the formalism that, in the prior system, turned curable defects into automatic desertion. Within this context lies Article 1,007, §4, which allows the appellant—once served with notice due to lack of proof of payment at the time of filing—to regularize the situation by paying double the fee. A salutary measure in theory, were it not for the paradoxical result it has produced: in many cases, the appellant who timely paid the fee—but failed to properly prove it—ends up more severely burdened than the one who paid nothing.
Let us examine the hypotheses of defects in fee payment and their distinct outcomes when the rule is applied:
a. The appellant does not pay the fee. He is notified, pays double, and his appeal is deemed admissible.
b. The appellant timely pays the fee but, due to formal lapses—incorrect payment slip, failure to file the receipt, error in proof—is ordered to “pay double.” By complying, the earlier payment is disregarded, and a new payment in the amount of the full double is demanded. Result: in this second scenario, the appellant pays three times the fee due.
Notably, the system penalizes more harshly those who fulfilled the material obligation but failed in form than those who simply did not pay. This scenario challenges basic principles of contemporary civil procedure, violating proportionality by imposing a more severe financial sanction on someone who committed a formal error than on one who fully breached the obligation. It also compromises equality (isonomia), as distinct situations receive inversely more rigorous treatment. Finally, it offends the instrumentality of forms, turning a curative rule into a mechanism of excessive punishment, incompatible with the cooperative model adopted by the legislature.
STJ’s Position
When the controversy reached the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), the Court maintained an interpretation grounded in the literal wording of the rule; that is, if proof of payment was inadequate, curative compliance must occur by paying double, and cannot be remedied by an additional simple payment. In REsp 1,996,415/MG, reported by Justice Nancy Andrighi (3rd Panel, judgment on Oct. 18, 2022), the 3rd Panel expressly stated that “incorrect proof likewise amounts to absence of payment of the fee.”
Given the STJ’s stance, two avenues remain. Either the legislature fine‑tunes the text of Article 1,007, §4, distinguishing the cure of the defect for those who did not pay from those who paid but failed to prove, forbidding the complete disregard of the payment already made; or the party requests a refund of the first fee payment, so that the double payment made after notice remains valid.
The fact is that the interpretation leading to the so‑called “triple fee” results from a practical construction that confines the spirit of the law to its literal terms—a cage long widened and reshaped by legal hermeneutics.
By punishing the useful act and rewarding omission, the institutional message becomes skewed: it is less risky not to pay than to pay and provide flawed proof.
Double Is Not Triple
The double payment provided in Article 1,007, §4 of the CPC must be understood as the final amount due to regularize the appellate fee—not as authorization for successive payments disconnected from procedural reality. Double is not triple. Nor may it become so by interpretation. By upholding decisions that disregard timely payments and demand a new doubled payment, we create a system that penalizes more those who err less, in direct contradiction to the rationality of the 2015 CPC.
The debate is not merely arithmetic. It is legal and, above all, systemic. If we accept this regressive shortcut that rehabilitates the formalism the 2015 CPC sought to bury, we endorse unfair arithmetic and a procedural logic incompatible with proportionality, equality, and the litigant’s trust in the appellate system.
Until then, whenever double is effectively demanded as triple, request a refund of the timely fee payment that was not adequately proved, so as to prevent the process from ceasing to be an instrument of justice and becoming a punitive semantic choice.
Available at: https://www.conjur.com.br/2026-fev-15/triplo-preparo-a-pena-e-o-saneamento-do-artigo-1-007-%C2%A74o-do-cpc/
Autor: Manuelle Senra Colla • email: manuelle.colla@ernestoborges.com.br
