The National Assembly has adopted the Personal Bankruptcy Law, which is a requirement for the second payment under the Recovery and Sustainability Plan (RSP).
The bill provides that a debtor who fails to service his obligation, which is in the amount of 10 minimum wages, for 18 months has the right to request to take advantage of this procedure, which will be considered by a district court.
However, in order to take advantage of this opportunity, he must be in good faith - not to have any obligations to the state, to the tax authorities, nor to have undermined the financial interests of his creditor.
There are also 11 more specific requirements for the debtor to declare personal bankruptcy. It was these moments that were criticized by "Vazrazhdane".
Petar Petrov announced that the law does not protect the right person, but the creditors:
"The PVU coalition - these are GERB, "New Beginning", BSP, ITN and PP-DB. They will accept a bankruptcy proceeding that will serve the creditors, but in no case the debtors.
If you have the means, if you have the desire to start such a proceeding according to the general procedure, you must arm yourself with patience - it will last perhaps two years and then you will have to wait another five years to be able to possibly be freed from these obligations".
And the Minister of Justice Georgi Georgiev commented in the plenary hall on the adopted requirements for creditors and debtors, stating:
"When you claim that you are bankrupt, but before that you donated your property - well, you do not seem like a good faith to the Bulgarian legislator with such a proposed provision. Yes, this creditor, in order to have a claim, obviously feigned something, gave something.
When he provided the mortgage loan for the purchase of the house, which otherwise we would not have been able to buy, if there was no mortgage loan, the creditor has the privilege and the right to sell this house in order to satisfy the claim, to collect the claim that he gave".
Nadezhda Yordanova from PP-DB commented: "This is a long-awaited law by a large part of Bulgarian citizens, because it will give an opportunity for a second chance to those good faith citizens who cannot service their obligations".
Hristo Rastashki from MECH was categorical that the law is lobbying: "This is a law that was written entirely by the banking lobby, it was written by the Supreme Bar Council. This law was made solely and exclusively to protect the banks - the whole time they were thinking about how not to violate the interests of the banks, how to preserve their money, how debtors could not participate in this bankruptcy procedure.
And I'm telling you right now - the way this law is written, it is for throwing in the trash, not a single debtor will be able to benefit from it".