Collecting a bounced check takes 1,600 days

You might wait around for years before your debt is collected in Israel, figures from the Justice Ministry's Enforcement and Collection Authority reveal. On average, collection of a bounced check takes 1,600 days, while collecting money on a court judgment takes 1,452 days. The average case involving collection of alimony payments takes 4,318 days. In some of the surveyed cases, claims are resolved after a settlement is reached on partial payment.

There are currently 3.5 million open files in the Bailiff's Office (Hotza'a Lafo'al in Hebrew ). According to the World Bank, Israel ranks 99th in the world in terms of the length of time it takes to enforce a contract - from the moment a complaint is filed in court, until the money owed is in the plaintiff's hands. Morocco, Yemen and Brazil are similarly ranked. Changes have been made at the Bailiff's Office in recent years, so that expedited proceedings are now available in some cases.

Last year, claims on bounced checks constituted 31.5% of all debt collection cases. Mortgage debt and alimony represented only a small number of files. Only 8% of litigants are not represented by a lawyer.

Among cases closed between April of last year and April of this year, mortgage claims are the largest, on average, at NIS 232,000. The average debt claim for this period is NIS 6,500, the average claim on a check is NIS 17,000 and the average claim involving collection of a court judgment is NIS 29,000.

In the first half of 2009, NIS 18.5 billion in debt claims were closed, compared to NIS 5.9 billion for the same period this year. This can be largely explained by Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman's decision to close old files in which creditor's had made no efforts to collect over the course of a certain number of years.

The Bailiff's Office is now adopting a more personal approach to the collection process. Rather than simply sending letters to debtors - half of which don't reach the addressee the first time they are sent - a pilot project has been initiated in which the Bailiff's Office calls the debtor to explain how much is owed and the debtor's rights.

Half of those phoned have paid up immediately after receiving the call.