Debtors should be able to pay what they owe before a case ever reaches court, with no frozen bank accounts and no costs piling up, the Chamber of Private Bailiffs (KCHSI) says. The chamber has sent justice minister Nikolay Naydenov a package of proposed legal changes and wants a working meeting to go through the details.
The plan is called "Prevention Instead of Force" and has five parts. The main one adds a new step before court: the debtor first gets official notice of the debt, with a deadline to pay it or agree a payment plan. At this stage the private bailiff can't enforce anything — they just pass information between the two sides, under fixed rules, deadlines and duties.
Bulgarian law already gives debtors two weeks to pay voluntarily under Article 428 of the Civil Procedure Code, but that clock only starts once enforcement proceedings are already under way. The chamber wants that voluntary step moved earlier, before court action and forced collection begin, so cases over debts nobody disputes — and which could simply be paid off — never reach court at all.
People with small debts get hit hardest, the chamber says. Court fees, lawyers' costs, interest and enforcement charges can add up to several times the original debt. On 16 June, KCHSI chairman Georgi Dichev presented the idea in public. He said people and businesses often only find out about a small debt once costs have already been added on, or their bank account has been frozen. For debts that aren't in dispute, he said, a bailiff should step in before court gets involved, so the debtor's first contact isn't with state enforcement.
The chamber's other four proposals are these. Private bailiffs should get the power to record facts that can be used as evidence. Property should be sellable at auction voluntarily, without forced enforcement. Heirs should find it easier to get information about the assets in an estate. And enforcement cases should move online, with remote access to case files.
On recording facts, the chamber lists cases such as shoddy building work, power supply and billing problems, disputes between neighbours, rows with traders or service providers, and online content. Facts recorded this way could then be used before a regulator or a court, before the situation changes. If this becomes law, it would need to spell out exactly what it covers, how it works, and how much weight the evidence carries.
In June, ombudsman Velislava Delcheva backed the idea of settling small debts voluntarily out of court, as long as protection for debtors is spelled out in detail. Her office sees older people, people with disabilities, welfare recipients and low-income families as most at risk. Delcheva wants clear information about the debt, a deadline to respond, and a real chance to pay it off or spread payments over time. She also asked whether this earlier step should be made compulsory for utility bills, where costs often end up higher than the unpaid bill itself.
Talks began in June with the courts, lawyers, businesses, consumer groups and the ombudsman's office. At the first public discussion, the idea won support from representatives of Sofia City Court, the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and consumer groups. Lawyers would be expected to help protect debtors' legal rights and to separate disputed debts from undisputed ones. The chamber points to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Lithuania, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro as countries that already allow voluntary settlement before forced collection.
Based on an analysis the chamber cites, the changes could save people and businesses hundreds of millions of leva a year. That figure comes from KCHSI's own estimate, not from the justice ministry or the courts. It's now up to the justice ministry to decide whether any of the proposals become actual bills.