Over-indebtedness of households (i05)

Definition: people facing over-indebtedness or serious financial difficulties can turn to the legal procedure of collective debt settlement. Under this procedure, a debt mediator will establish a repayment plan for all outstanding debts and determine the amount necessary for the debtor to meet his or her current monthly expenses. This amount must be sufficient to enable him/her to live a decent life without falling below the level of the monthly 'social integration allowance'. In Belgium, the Central individual credit register (CCP), managed by the National Bank of Belgium, centralises data on the number of outstanding collective debt settlements. It uses information from labour courts and debt mediators, via the central file of seizure, delegation, assignment, collective debt settlement and protest notices. Collective debt settlement notices are automatically deleted from the CCP after the expiry of the applicable regulatory retention period. The indicator used here is expressed in thousands of persons and relate to the situation at the end of each year. Those data and the Eurostat population data that relate to the situation at the beginning of each following year are used to calculate the share of the population aged 18 and over that is in collective debt.