The Ministry of Economic Development has prepared a draft law on changing the rules of out-of-court bankruptcy of citizens

In the coming days, the agency will submit to the Government of the Russian Federation a bill on expanding the circle of persons who will have access to the out-of-court bankruptcy procedure. This was announced by the first Deputy Minister of Economic Development of Russia Ilya Torosov at a press conference in Interfax.

The bill expands the circle of citizens who will be able to get rid of unbearable debts for free through multifunctional centers (MFC). Now the procedure is available to Russians who have outstanding obligations on loans, taxes and payments for housing and communal services in the amount of 50 to 500 thousand rubles, in respect of which enforcement proceedings were terminated due to the lack of property that can be recovered and a new one has not been initiated after the return of the enforcement document.

"It will become even more socially oriented – less protected segments of the population will be able to use it. They also proposed to increase the maximum amount of debt to 1 million rubles for initiating the procedure, while also reducing its minimum amount to 25 thousand rubles," Torosov said.

The project also allows pensioners and citizens whose only income is social payments to initiate an out-of-court personal bankruptcy procedure a year after the start of compulsory debt collection from them, and other citizens - after seven years. 
At the same time, the deadline will be counted from the first writ of execution. "If there is a writ of execution with a term of more than seven years, you can undergo the procedure," Torosov said.

Alexey Yukhnin, the head of the Fedresurs project, said that over 2.5 years of the out-of-court bankruptcy procedure, citizens have already written off debts in the amount of 3.59 billion rubles. The procedure has been completed for 10.3 thousand people. In total, from September 2020 to the end of February 2023, 15,084 procedures were launched against citizens with a total debt of 5.22 billion rubles.

After passing the out-of-court bankruptcy procedure, a citizen is obliged to indicate the fact of his bankruptcy within 5 years when applying for a loan. The remaining restrictions relate to the replacement of senior positions in companies.