Confiscation orders find dwindling deposits
The state is finding ever fewer deposits to confiscate from debtors’ bank accounts, as balances are shrinking by the month. The average amount siphoned off from indebted citizens’ accounts has been in steady decline since 2015, when electronic confiscations started.
Data seen by Kathimerini show that the average balance in the accounts the state has issued thousands of confiscation orders for has now dropped to 500 euros, against 550 euros in 2016 and 730 euros in 2015. This is revealing as regards the drop in deposits over the last two years, a trend that continued in the year’s first quarter, when household deposits slumped to 98.8 billion euros from 100.8 billion at end-2016.
The huge number of confiscation notices that the banks execute upon the orders of the Independent Authority for Public Revenue has increased forced measures by third parties (i.e. the banks) by 128.6 percent in just a year.
Some 1.5 million such notices were issued in 2016. Their huge volume is the result of the IAPR’s policy of sending notices to all the main banks even if a debtor does not have an account with all of them.
