Bailiff Powers and Charges Cut under New Amendments to Civil Procedure Code e

Bulgaria’s Parliament on 18th of October adopted amendments to the Code of Civil Procedure. They limit the powers of private enforcement agents and remove the possibility for people to be sued for accrued liabilities without knowing. The amount of charges in enforcement cases is also reduced.

The amendments were tabled by the National Ombudsperson Maya Manolova. From the parliamentary rostrum she thanked MPs and described the changes as another winning battle of citizens against injustice.

Debtors will no longer be sued in enforcement cases without knowing. The adopted changes introduce the requirement for three visits to the debtor's home address, as the intervals between the visits should be a week. After that a message on the front door or mailbox should be placed. The changes also provide for notifications to be delivered at the workplace. The private bailiffs’ fees, which unitl now have been particularly unfair for small debts, will be decreased.

An opportunity is introduced for citizens to pay their debts during the trial. They will also be able to challenge property valuations when the property is released for public sale. This is aimed at ending the practices of one’s property being sold at a cheap price and the owner remaining ‘eternal debtor’. In addition, Parliament adopted that there should be proportionality between the enforcement to the debtor and the amount of the debt.

Private enforcement agents will se subject to sanctions when for small debts they restrain all bank accounts and property.

The MPs introduced a text whereby a private enforcement agent would be liable for damages caused by procedural unlawful enforcement and in the cases when the agent imposed security that was obviously disproportionate to the amount of the debt in the enforcement case.

The legislators also adopted a provision according to which the debtor's bank account should be restrained to the amount of the debt in the enforcement case.

The MPs adopted detailed texts on unseizable income.

Parliamentary Legal Affairs Committee Chair Danail Kirilov said that this change would ensure reliability of the property valuations.

The majority of the MPs rejected proposals to introduce a 10-year prescription period for all unsecured receivables against individuals. According to Filip Popov of BSP, the introduction of this prescription period will not solve the problem of the so-called "eternal debtor". It is high time to meet the EU's requirements to pass a law on bankruptcy of individuals, he said.

Danail Kirilov of GERB said that the proposals were not supported not because of the opinion of the opposition, but because of stand points by the scientific community. The remarks are that 10 years is a short period of time given the current speed of justice, Kirilov said. According to him, a law on bankruptcy of indivuduals will not solve the problem, but on the contrary - it will create slavery.

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