Debt Protection Law to Be Reviewed in Fall
Published: 09.07.2012 11:26
Photo: Postimees/Scanpix
Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee has said that the Debt Restructuring and Debt Protection Act is in need of reform and will be retooled by lawmakers this fall.
“In the framework of the Parliamentary review, we can invite the main authors of the bill and today's implementers to sit at a table together and review the issue,” Committee Chairman Marko Pomerants told uudised.err.ee.
Passed in November 2010 and implemented the following April, the act was meant to provide an alternative to bankruptcy and greater security for families and other borrowers with home loans who find themselves in temporary payment difficulty. Up to end of June this year, 61 appeals for debt restructuring have been submitted to county courts. Fifty-one were declined review.
The committee's deputy chairman, Kalle Laanet, said he wanted to send the courts an inquiry regarding the problematic parts of the legislation.
“In the drafting stages of the law, I was quite skeptical that the law would be implemented in its existing form,” Laanet said. “Certainly, the time is ripe to analyze the bottlenecks of the law and consider reforms so that the law could be implemented in accordance with society's expectations.”
Ott Tammik