The Central Netherlands court will work with debt officers from today. Debt officers are court employees who can help people with debts. They can ensure that litigants with financial problems reach their municipality’s debt assistance sooner.
Referral
During hearings, judges regularly see people with debts or financial concerns. By deploying debt officers, the Central Netherlands District Court wants to help this group of people to come into contact with debt assistance more quickly. Pauline Elferink, project leader and senior judge at the Court’s Supervision department: “Unfortunately, a large group of Dutch people are faced with debts. We see these people in court again and again. Repeatedly ordering people with debts to pay claims does not contribute to solving the problems. It is more effective to see how we can help these people further. That is why we will refer litigants to debt counseling if they are open to it.”
Debt officers
Debt officers are trained employees who can be called by the examining judge if it appears during or in preparation for a hearing that the litigant has debts. They can also be present at specific hearings, for example in cases where people are in arrears with a housing association or health insurer. After the hearing, the debt officer will talk to the litigant, record the relevant information and share it with the municipality where the litigant lives. The municipality will then contact the person seeking debt assistance within three working days.
Fast signaling
Other courts have been working with debt officers for some time and have found that the use of debt officers contributes to a faster identification of people with debts. Pauline Elferink: “I hope that with our debt officers we can contribute somewhat to combating the debt problem in our region. The aim of deploying debt officers is to ensure that people with debts are seen and heard sooner, so that a suitable solution can be found more quickly.”
