In the Netherlands a large number of households is overindebted. Despite the economic prosperity, 20% of the households has to deal with large debts. Dissatisfaction with the position of debtors has grown in recent years. Numerous initiatives are being launched to improve their position. New legislation is provided for and municipalities are starting up all kinds of pilots. There is momentum for improvement. It is important that all initiatives are coordinated. In addition, it is also important to investigate what the legislation and initiatives yield.

In the Dutch debt counseling system, a close collaboration between two trajectories, being voluntary debt settlements and debt settlements imposed by a judge, is vital for the overall success of the system. This article shows that this crucial collaboration is in fact poor, and negatively impacts the success of the debt counseling system. One of the underlying factors is the poor performance of the system as a whole. Although there is a common interest in reducing debts, the involved parties also have their own conflicting interests. The current system fails however to accomplish a tighter collaboration, and even sometimes seems to do the opposite. The authors conclude that a redesign of the Dutch system is necessary to organize a better and more coherent playing field.

This contribution treats debt recovery as an important cause for the emergence and worsening of the debt problem. It is explained that when a bailiff seizes wage, the debtor often has too little left to live on. In addition to seizure of wage, the bailiff can also seize the bank account or seize household goods in order to sell these. The author describes how this can lead to new debts and what legislation is being prepared to modernize this situation. In case of problematic debts, multiple creditors are collecting from the same debtor, which requires coordination. The recovery by creditors facilitated by the current rules focuses on the claims of individual creditors. However, as soon as problematic debts are involved, an integrated approach is necessary, in which the common interest, the interest of all creditors and that of the debtor, takes precedence over self-interest.

The corona crisis can be seen as an opportunity to facilitate a much wider access to the courts for a clean slate in the case of personal insolvency. This access was provided by the 1998 Dutch law on debt rescheduling Wsnp. After explaining the relapse of the law and the problems of the present system, an overview is given of the societal activities to turn the tide. The judiciary has started several local experiments to help overindebted citizens. Using the concept of societally effective courts the Council of the judiciary has backed this development. In the concluding part the author discusses several paths to improve the situation. First, the courts should organize themselves in such a way that debt collection and debt help are coordinated. Second, the courts must abandon their strict attitude towards the formalities for access that are now in place. The municipal assistance institutions should be given the possibility to suggest to the courts that their clients are ripe for a fresh start.

Problematic debt has a large impact on people’s lives and tends to escalate quickly, making early detection and debt prevention crucial. Debt prevention is a mix of measures, activities and provisions aimed at ensuring that people acquire financial skills and that they are capable and actually behave financially sound, so that their finances are and remain in order. So people have to be financially literate and have financial skills, but they also have to be able to act at the right time in the right way. There is currently not enough attention for these three elements in legislation and regulations.

In order to improve the effectiveness of offender supervision many studies have been conducted into risk factors for delinquency. Evidence was found that debts and crime are interrelated. However, understanding of potential underlying risk factors in this relationship is limited. Results of an analysis of client files (N=250) show that debts among probation clients are highly prevalent and problems with respect to education, work and mental and physical health seem to be important underlying factors in the relationship between debts and crime. In addition, interviews were conducted with both probation workers (N=33) and clients (N=16) to get insight into the possibilities to adequately support clients with regard to debts in order to stimulate successful resocialization. Results underline the importance of paying attention to possible underlying factors to effectively supervise clients.