After endless confusion – and numerous court rulings that left single people and families out in the cold – the Justice Ministry has confirmed that PER funding, set up as an alternative to bankruptcy and aimed at situations where success was still possible, should be open to families and private people, not simply businesses.
Público announces the coup today saying: “Contrary to the tendency that began to be followed by many judges, the Justice Ministry understands that families have just as much right as businesses to resort to this mechanism, which is much faster and more open to agreements over debt repayments than traditional judicial insolvencies.”
The ministry led by Francisca Van Dunem has declared that “the law does not distinguish between debtors, whether they are single people or collectives” and the “intention of the legislator was to allow all debtors facing economic hardship or imminent financial insolvency to recover, if the conditions were there for them to do so”.
Público explains that this will almost certainly change the landscape of applications to PER funding, which recently suffered “a phenomenon never before seen”.
After years in which the number of applications increased exponentially, for the first time adhesion by families “dropped brutally: from 955 in the first half of 2015 to 424 in the first six months of this year (a fall of almost 56%).
“The principal reason for this fall is precisely the fact that there were more and more courts vetoing private access to this alternative to insolvency,” the paper added.
