Being able to leave behind a part of the debts contracted has been possible since the creation of the Second Chance Law. The possibility of starting from scratch is what a 63-year-old pharmacist from Valladolid has found who has had a debt of just over 5 million euros cancelled.
It has been the Mercantile Court number 1 of Valladolid that, through an order issued by the judge in charge of the same, has made possible the cancellation of this debt. The magistrate has decided to conclude this bankruptcy procedure because he is in the event of non-existence of assets necessary to satisfy the creditors’ credits.
This exoneration is provisional and does not include payments of credits with the mass and privileged that are not covered by the plan that has been presented by the debtor and that amounts to the amount of €18,000.
This incredible case of exoneration of a debt has been carried out by the lawyer Ignacio Brágimo who took over the case after another professional started it in November 2019.
This case dates back to 10 years earlier when the debtor, a pharmaceutical expert, was forced to sign a debt acknowledgment of more than 800,000 euros. After that, the creditor himself begins a procedure against the pharmacy.
The debtor’s inability to pay was reflected in a 2016 sentence in which the bankruptcy was declared guilty. However, when taking charge of the case, the new lawyer realized that there was “malpractice” on the part of the bankruptcy administration and studied the way to separate it to eliminate it from the procedure.
While in this type of procedure the Bankruptcy Administration appoints a person who is in charge of managing and administering the procedure, the assets and other issues, in this case, the person in charge had not fulfilled his job. Due to this, in 2020, Brágimo promoted the separation incident, getting a new representative appointed to carry out the process a few months later.
We are facing one of the largest debt extinctions of a natural person that have been carried out.
We must be clear that the Second Chance law is an administrative process that allows individuals to cancel a part of their debts. That it is not possible to cancel it on all occasions since there are a series of requirements and that the maximum amount that can be forgiven is 5 million euros.
Thanks to this mechanism, it is possible to overcome a situation in which it is not possible for the debtor to face his creditors, but without forgetting their rights. The intention is to be able to reach a balanced situation between the two parties.
Due to the modification of the Second Chance Law, there are new situations that allow it to be adapted to the current social situation and the needs that are required. The main objective of these novelties is to be able to make the process faster and less expensive for those who need to resort to it.
The main novelty is that the participation of a bankruptcy mediator has been eliminated, in addition to the appearance of the exoneration with conservation of the asset with a payment plan. This greatly facilitates the achievement of debt relief such as mortgages or quick loans.
On the other hand, the terms agreed with this reform are shorter, reaching a maximum of 18 months to obtain debt forgiveness. Thanks to this, it would never take more than a year and a half to obtain the cancellation from the moment the Second Chance Law process began.
