timeliness

In more detail, the announcement of the Plenary Session of the presidents of the Bar Associations of Greece is as follows:

"The Plenary of the Presidents of the Bar Associations of Greece, by its decision, condemns the phenomenon of unethical and abusive practices and behaviors by Claims Management Companies (funds) at the expense of both debtors-financially vulnerable citizens and their attorneys, which has become a daily occurrence reality and will stand in solidarity with the attorneys of the borrowers, who are prevented from exercising their rights and fulfilling their duties.

In fact, after the latest judicial developments, the situation has worsened as these Companies, apparently, took them as a "green light" for the continuation and escalation of abusive tactics.

We must point out that, according to complaints from colleagues, the communication of debtors and their attorneys with these companies is extremely difficult, with the only possibility being a call to a call center (with often untrained and unauthorized employees to discuss the matter ) and the exchange of electronic messages, with an unspecified processing time frame, the legalization of lawyers is unreasonably delayed since the relevant authorizations are re-checked by the legal service even though they have been drawn up, according to the pre-formulated templates that the companies themselves require, the proposed debt settlement plans are pre-decided and standardized, without taking into account the real financial capabilities of the debtors and thus become unenforceable.

Furthermore, a long delay is observed in the granting of payment certificates, in requests to complete/correct information on behalf of the claims management companies in the platform of extrajudicial debt settlement mechanism of Law 4738/2020, in which it is observed that they participate only for small amounts of claims, making it essentially non-existent operational and efficient for the debtors, in opening accounts for servicing the installments of either judicial arrangements or the extrajudicial mechanism, despite the repeated requests of the debtors and their lawyers, as a result of which the debtors are at risk of falling out of these arrangements.

In fact, debtors who already comply with the regulation of Law 3869/2010 are sent vague and general out-of-court discount notices, on the occasion of the sudden change of service account of the judicial regulation, requesting amounts that have already been paid.

As a result of these unethical and abusive practices and behaviors, debtors and lawyers suffer unjustifiably, lawyers are unable to exercise their statutory duties and citizens their rights, with the result that their property and especially their first residence is at risk.

The Plenary invites the attorneys of the debtors to notify by name to the e-mail address: olomeleia@dsa.gr specific facts that constitute and document the above unethical and abusive behavior of the Claims Management Companies, in order to take relevant initiatives to the competent auditing bodies.

The Plenary of the presidents of the Bar Associations requests the Bank of Greece to exercise in a direct and effective manner the supervisory and auditing role it has by law towards the Claims Management Companies (funds).

Finally, the Plenary calls on the Government to take an initiative to suspend the auctions during the pre-election period, especially to the extent that the debtors will not be able to effectively exercise their right to judicial protection, due to the suspension of the courts in view of the parliamentary elections".