Maria Kyriacou, head of our Nicosia office, was one of the principal speakers at a recent seminar organised by the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Cyprus for its members on the subject "Private Debt and Personal Insolvency".
Maria explained the current legislation on bankruptcy and personal insolvency and the latest developments in rehabilitation schemes including personal arrangements and release of obligations, with a particular focus on the 2018 Law on the Insolvency of Natural Persons, Personal Repayment Schemes and Debt Relief Orders, which streamlines procedures and facilitates rehabilitation of debtors who have not committed offences, in order to speed up their return to productive economic activity. It gives debtors the opportunity to restructure their debts by compromise and arrangement with their creditors, and provides relief from debts of up to EUR 25,000 for debtors with very limited means and no assets.
Thanks largely to such measures, the number of bankruptcies has fallen considerably over the past few years. To further facilitate the reduction of non-performing debt, a debt relief programme known as ESTIA will come into force at the beginning of 2019.
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