During service and repair work on an electric parking brake (1) of a motor vehicle, there is the problem that, in order to switch into a service mode in which the parking brake (15) can be completely opened, in order for example to be able to exchange a brake cable, a special diagnosis unit must generally be used. A diagnosis unit of this type is however not always available in workshops. It is therefore proposed to carry out the switch into the service mode of the electric parking brake (1) with at least one control element (2,2a) of the motor vehicle. Here, it is provided that, for safety reasons and in order to avoid an undesired switch into the service mode, the actuation of the at least one control element (2, 2a) must take place according to a predefined input procedure.