Judicial interpretations of some controversial issues regarding the discharge of debts for individuals established in article 178 bis of the Spanish Insolvency Act

Abstract

This article analyses, based on the solutions adopted by courts, some controversial issues of the discharge of debts existing for individuals under Spanish Insolvency Law. Under the Spanish Insolvency Act, an individual may enjoy the benefits of the discharge of debt during an insolvency proceeding provided that certain requirements are met. This debt forgiveness allows individual debtors to emerge from bankruptcy without carrying pre-existing debts. Therefore, individual debtors in bankruptcy will be allowed to have a second chance after the end of the insolvency proceeding. Despite the fact that the discharge of debts for individuals was introduced in the Spanish Insolvency Act in 2015, its application involves many practical issues that courts have been trying to solve in the past years.