New sifting of Katseli debtors

The government is about to perform a close inspection of all applications for protection of debtors under the provisions of the so-called Katseli law, to find out how many of them deserve protection status and which of them have only applied in order to win time.

The inspection will take place via an online platform that will start operating in October. Through that platform, all debtors who have filed applications to benefit from the law named after a former economy minister and whose case has not yet been heard will have to submit an application to have their court date rescheduled.

It is through that process that they will be asked to update the data in their original applications, which will then be examined for reliability: The platform will be interconnected with Taxisnet, which will be used to check the eligibility of each application.

Any borrowers who fail to submit an application for the rescheduling of their court date and do not update their data will lose the protection from the Katseli law and their lender bank will be able to exercise all lawful measures, reaching up to the auctioning of their real estate assets.

Sources say that the platform will help establish whether an applicant is an individual or has a business profile that means he does not deserve protection by this law; to date this eligibility test only took place at the court hearing, allowing for the protection of indebted applicants until then, even if they were tradesmen or freelance professionals.

Based on the timetable agreed at a meeting of Justice and Finance ministry officials, there will be a period of two months granted for the updating of personal data. The government objective is that the sieving of all pending applications will be completed by the end of 2020 for the acceleration of the court hearings of those cases within 2021.

The outstanding applications of the Katseli law are estimated to reach up to 70,000, and speeding up their hearings has long been a demand by banks, which consider the law to be a refuge for strategic defaulters.