CREDITORS
“SINCE ten years, I did not go on vacation, my wife could never afford a session at the hairdresser, I could not give a gift to my grandchildren, ” says Georges Krausz, former technical-commercial framework. In his book Freedom on bail (In Octavo, 2007, 210 pages, 19 euros), Mr. Krausz modestly testifies his career and denounces the inhumanity of the debt overhang procedure and its dysfunctions.
First, there was the “climax” where he earned 700,000 francs a year (106,000 euros), a salary composed of 50% of a variable part. In 1990, he was transferred to Aquitaine with the guarantee of receiving the same salary: “I was 52 years old, I was confident and lived this mutation as a promotion, I bought a house and did a lot of work.”
His 200,000 francs of debt (30,000 euros) are then easily assumed by his income. But as early as January 1991, his employer told him that he would no longer pay the variable portion of his salary, which was then halved. “I did not react immediately, thinking it was a mistake,” said Mr. Krausz, ” but most importantly, I did not say anything to my children and my wife, out of pride, with hope. that everything was going to work out. ”
Mr. Krausz continually contracts new loans. In September 1999, he accumulated twenty-six, for a debt of 350,000 euros, which cost him 7,900 euros each month while he earns only 4,260 euros. His bank, which had always granted him overdrafts, brutally rejected all the samples: “I was cornered, exhausted, and I entrusted, in tears, to my son, then a student.”
At the end of 1999, Georges filed a file with the commission of overindebtedness, but this one is rejected for the motive of “voluntary overindebtedness”: “I thus went to the judge who, in May 2000, recognized my good faith. was the consequence of an accident of life. ”
Mr. Krausz was dismissed in April 2000 and can benefit from a pension cut by 15%. To comply with the clearance plan established by the commission, he pays his severance pay to his creditors and sells his house: “It allowed me to extinguish half of my debt, but I regret it because my rent current is higher than the credit terms of my house. ”
“200 EUROS TO LIVE”
Eight days after the implementation of this plan supposed to suspend all the prosecution, one of the creditors nevertheless assigns the Krausz couple to justice: “An assault that my wife did not support and which led her to make a suicide attempt. ” Since Ms. Krausz has been hospitalized multiple times.
The couple’s income today stands at 3,500 euros. “We could be considered wealthy, but, once the drafts, rent, and charges paid, we have 200 euros to live.” The least unforeseen destabilizes the budget. Mr. Krausz is thus obliged to borrow from friends the advance of medical expenses and court costs.
His hope is that in September 2009, at the end of this scrupulously respected plan to which he sacrificed his patrimony, his debts are erased and he is finally released: “As the law provides.”
