I have fallen behind on my consumer credit agreement. What can I do?

Imagine you're in a situation where a bank representative calls you to tell you that if you don't pay your consumer credit on time, they're going to terminate the contract and foreclose on you. What could you do?

With the worsening economic crisis, default situations are unfortunately becoming more common. In order to protect the interests of consumers and ensure that loans are paid in a sustainable manner, Decree-Law no. 227/2012 of 25 October introduced PARI (action plan for the risk of default) and PERSI (out-of-court procedure for settling default situations).

As both are extremely relevant to the question posed, PERSI is the most important.

In this regard, the law stipulates that if a situation of default is detected, the credit institution must inform the customer of the delay in fulfilment and of the amounts owed, and must take steps to ascertain the reasons behind the default. In the event of non-compliance with the obligations set out in the credit agreement, the bank customer must be included in PERSI between the 31st and 60th day of non-compliance.

Inclusion in PERSI is therefore, as a rule, an obligation incumbent on the institution.

In addition to this situation, the customer must be included in PERSI whenever:

- is in default with regard to the fulfilment of the obligations arising from the credit agreement and requests, by means of a communication on a durable medium, to be integrated;

- The bank customer who warned of the risk of non-compliance with the obligations arising from the credit agreement goes into default.

Integration into PERSI is therefore compulsory and must be promoted by the credit institution and notified to the customer.

Thus, with integration into PERSI, a phase of proposals and negotiations will take place with a view to, roughly speaking, regularising the default and subsequently fulfilling the contract.

Inclusion in PERSI is very important, firstly because while it is pending and until PERSI is extinguished, the credit institution is prevented from:

1. Terminating the credit agreement on the grounds of default;
2. Take legal action with a view to satisfying its claim;
3. Assigning part or all of the credit to a third party (except in special cases provided for by law); or
4. Transfer their contractual position to a third party (except in special cases provided for by law).

Therefore, and in response, we recommend that you ask your credit institution, in writing, to include you in PERSI, seeking to renegotiate it.