The Ministry of Justice refuted the myth about the automatic blocking of all property due to 1 hryvnia of debt
The issue of forced debt collection has once again come into focus after the adoption of Bill No. 14005, as it quickly became the subject of loud interpretations about the alleged automatic blocking of all accounts and property due to minimal debt. Because of this, the Ministry of Justice provided an explanation of what is really changing in the document, what rules remain in force, and why the widespread statement about the seizure of all property for one hryvnia of debt does not correspond to the content of the enforcement procedure.
What the Ministry of Justice explains
Key clarification concerns the most common myth about one hryvnia of debt. The Ministry of Justice emphasizes that the fact of the existence of debt does not mean the arbitrary seizure of all funds, accounts and property regardless of its size. The logic of enforcement proceedings is that collection is made within the amount of the debt, therefore, if one hryvnia is subject to collection under an executive document, the restriction is imposed within this amount, and not on the entire amount of the debtor’s property.
In addition, the ministry separately refuted another widespread statement about the allegedly new unlimited powers of executors. Their position boils down to the fact that the law on digitalization does not create a new model of forced collection, but transfers individual processes to electronic form in order to speed up data exchange and reduce the number of paper actions.
In the explanation to the Ministry of Justice, special attention was paid to the current sequence of collection. First of all, it is carried out at the expense of the debtor’s funds in bank accounts, as well as other assets that can be used to enforce the decision. Only after that, enforcement actions can be extended to other property, in particular to vehicles, if the funds in the accounts are not enough to repay the debt.
This detail is of fundamental importance, since it was around it that the greatest distortions arose. In public discussions, the impression was created that any debt immediately triggers the mechanism of total seizure of property, although the Ministry of Justice emphasizes something completely different: the procedure has a certain priority, and the amount of intervention is related to the amount of the collection.
What is known about the debtor’s sole residence
A separate block of explanations concerns housing, because this is the topic that causes the greatest public concern. The Ministry of Justice reminded that enforcement actions against sole residence are not applied if the amount of debt is less than the threshold established by law. The ministry’s announcement mentions a limit of 50 minimum wages, which as of January 1, 2026 is 432,350 hryvnias.
This means that small or moderate debt in itself does not create grounds for foreclosure on a single dwelling. In practical terms, such clarification is important because many emotional interpretations have arisen around the bill, in which technical changes in the procedure were tried to be presented as a threat of immediate loss of housing due to a small debt.
What digitalization of enforcement proceedings provides
The essence of bill 14005 is associated by the Ministry of Justice primarily with a technical update of the procedure itself. It is about faster exchange of information, electronic interaction between participants in enforcement proceedings, simplification of individual actions of the executor and reduction of the volume of paper documentation. That is why the Ministry of Justice emphasizes that the subject of changes lies in the area of administration and digital tools, while the basic rules of debt collection remain in force.
The reason for the resonance in society regarding forced debt collection is that the topic of seizure of accounts and property is always perceived sharply, and any legislative innovations in this area easily become grounds for exaggeration. In the case of Bill 14005, the public discussion quickly reduced a complex legal topic to a simplified formula about one hryvnia of debt and the complete blocking of everything that a person has. In response, the Ministry of Justice is trying to return the discussion to the content of the norm, where there is no provision on automatic total seizure of property due to a symbolic amount of debt.
The Ministry’s explanations show that the digitalization of enforcement proceedings does not change the collection limit, does not cancel the sequence of enforcement actions, and does not create grounds for arbitrarily blocking all of the debtor’s assets due to a minimum amount. At the heart of this explanation is one thesis, which the Ministry of Justice repeats most consistently: the amount of the seizure is related to the amount of the debt, and the protection of a single home for debts below the established threshold is preserved.
