Minister of Justice and Public Administration Ivan Malenica on Friday announced that amended enforcement legislation was expected to go into force by the end of the year, expediting and making those procedures much less expensive.

The amendments include the digitisation of enforcement procedures so that authentic documents can be submitted via e-mail to public notaries’ chamber which sends them to local public notaries according to the residence of the person against whom enforcement is being conducted, Malenica told reporters.

Public notaries will have 15 days to inform the person concerned of the existence of a debt to allow them to settle the debt or lodge an appeal with a court of law.

The scope of income that cannot be subject to enforcement is also being expanded, he said, adding that evictions will not be permitted during winter months.

The main aim is to make the process cheaper and faster, he added.

Malenica said that the government had taken several steps to modify enforcement procedures such as not allowing enforcements on a single property, adding that the number of people with blocked accounts had decreased from 370,000 to 229,000.

Due to the coronavirus epidemic enforcements were postponed for three months and the postponement was extended for an additional three months, which will expire on October 18, said Malenica.

He added that additional guidelines have been sent to public notaries asking that they start dealing with enforcement cases submitted in the past six months in three phases – October 19, 20 November and 20 January.

According to available information, public notaries have received enforcement requests that concern 30,000 to 50,000 citizens who will have an opportunity to see what can be done and possibly make a deal in those three phases.

The FINA financial agency has said that it has data on 170,000 enforcement requests, which is slightly less than last year.

The amendments will soon be put up for public consultation and they should enter into force by the end of the year, when a task force will be set up to work on a new law that will include all stakeholders in enforcement procedures.