Standard bankruptcy
The regular bankruptcy or the regular bankruptcy procedure is the general insolvency procedure of German law. It is used in accordance with the Insolvency Code (InsO) if no special procedure is provided. Special procedures are, for example, the consumer insolvency procedure or the estate insolvency procedure , for which supplementary provisions apply (cf. § 304 Paragraph 1 Sentence 1 and § 315 InsO).
Extension to self-employed and freelancers
With the change in the law on December 1, 2001, self-employed persons and former self-employed persons with complex financial circumstances (more than 19 creditors ) were opened to the standard insolvency proceedings. This created the possibility of using the insolvency procedure to organize the financial situation of all natural persons . Since then, there is no longer any need to cover the costs of the proceedings because it is possible to apply for a deferral of the costs of the proceedings . In practice, this regulation enables every self-employed person to continue his activity despite bankruptcy or over-indebtedness . The legislature has thus taken into account the knowledge that small and medium-sized self-employed people can very rarely be successfully reintegrated into the labor market after they have stopped working . Rather, the possibility of continuing self-employment after the opening of insolvency proceedings increases the chances of creditors being able to obtain at least partial satisfaction of their claims.
In summary, it can be stated that the German legal system provides a solution for self-employed traders and freelancers who have got into financial difficulties despite their honest behavior, which takes into account the protection of human dignity insofar as the natural person is also enabled to use a procedure to free them from their debts (see discharge of residual debts ) and no longer do legal persons better.
literature
- Heinz Vallendar: The development of the standard insolvency procedure in 2010 , NJW 21/2011, 1491
