Seizures

Introduction

A seizure occurs when a court or public authorities seize a person or business' financial assets. As a bank, Solaris is legally obliged to inform customers when a seizure occurs and allow them to pay the debt. To this end, Solaris offers API endpoints for partners to retrieve information about a seizure.

This guide explains how to handle seizures in your application.

Seizure resource

Seizures are represented on Solaris' system using the seizure resource. A seizure resource can be attached to either a person or a business.

As soon as the seizure is created, the seizure amount (or the sum of the seizure amount + additional costs) is reserved on the account.

Note

A seizure placed on a person affects all of that customer's accounts with the account types CHECKING_PERSONAL and/or CHECKING_SOLE_PROPRIETOR.
A seizure placed on a business affects only accounts owned by the legal entity with the type CHECKING_BUSINESS. It does not affect the accounts of any person who is an authorized person of the business.

A seizure resource has the following properties:

Name	Type	Description
`id`	string	Unique ID of the seizure resource.
`enactment_date`	string	The date when the authority issued the seizure.
`delivery_date`	string	The date when the seizure notice was delivered to Solaris.
`resolution_case_number`	string	The seizure's case ID number, generated by the issuing authority.
`seizure_type`	string(enum)	The type of seizure. See the section below for more detailed descriptions of each value. Possible values are: `ATTACHMENT` `AUTHORITY_SEIZURE` `COURT_SEIZURE` `PRE_ATTACHMENT`
`status`	string(enum)	The current status of the seizure. Possible values: `ACTIVE` `FULFILLED` `WAITING_FOR_AUTHORITY`
`amount`	object	Object that represents the amount of the debt.
`debtor`	object	Object that contains the name and address information of the debtor.
`creditor`	object	Object that contains the name and address information of the creditor.
`creditor_representative`	object	Object containing information about a person or an entity that represents the creditor (i.e., a third-party liaison between the debtor and creditor).
`customer_id`	string	ID of the Solaris customer affected by the seizure.
`customer_type`	string(enum)	Specifies whether the affected Solaris customer is a `Person` (retail customers + freelancers) or a `Business`.

Example:

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{ 
  "id": "211c5c2f34ac442ff6f93d09fc8fb3edseiz", 
  "delivery_date": "2019-01-31", 
  "enactment_date": "2019-01-28", 
  "authority_name": "Court", 
  "resolution_case_number": "Number 212121212", 
  "seizure_type": "COURT_SEIZURE", 
  "status": "ACTIVE", 
  "amount": { 
    "value": 42, 
    "unit": "cents", 
    "currency": "EUR" 
  }, 
  "additional_cost": { 
    "value": 42, 
    "unit": "cents", 
    "currency": "EUR" 
  }, 
  "debtor": { 
    "name": "Ben Wiseley", 
    "address": "Wisestrasse 34", 
    "postal_code": "10249", 
    "city": "Berlin", 
    "country": "DE", 
    "state": "BE" 
  }, 
  "creditor": { 
    "name": "Betflix LLC", 
    "address": "Bethousestrasse 43", 
    "postal_code": "10409", 
    "city": "Berlin", 
    "country": "DE", 
    "state": "BE", 
    "iban": "DE72110101001000014344" 
  }, 
  "creditor_representative": { 
    "name": "Lawyer LLC", 
    "address": "Gunsterstrasse 22", 
    "postal_code": "10409", 
    "city": "Berlin", 
    "country": "DE", 
    "state": "BE", 
    "case_number": "42ABC-2", 
    "iban": "DE72110101001000014344" 
  }, 
  "customer_id": "da682230fb56352dcf471aa13cc4a37ecper", 
  "customer_type": "Person" 
}

Types of seizures

You must prepare your solution to handle the following types of seizures:

Seizure from Authorities (Pfändungs- und Einziehungsverfügung)

This type of seizure is represented as an AUTHORITY_SEIZURE in Solaris' system. It occurs when the seizure is issued directly by an official authority (Behörde).

This is the most common type of seizure. You should not expect an additional_cost or a creditor_representative on the seizure in this case.

Seizure from Court (Pfändungs- und Einziehungsbeschluss)

This type of seizure is represented as a COURT_SEIZURE in Solaris' system. It occurs when a private person owes a debt and the creditor applies to the court to grant them a seizure notice.

In this case, the creditor is usually assisted by a lawyer or a collections agency (Inkasso). There are fees for the application and the delivery of a court seizure.

Seizure from a Prosecutor (Arrestpfändung)

This type of seizure is represented as an ATTACHMENT in Solaris' system. In this case, the prosecutor's office (Staatsanwaltschaft) issues a payment ban on the account of a person whom they suspect of fraud.

The money is kept in the owner's account while the fraud investigation is carried out. It is only necessary to pay out the funds if the prosecutor's office finds enough evidence of fraud. As a consequence, the creditor IBAN is not given in every document.

Seizure for Ban

This type of seizure is represented as a PRE_ATTACHMENT in Solaris' system. This occurs when a provisional payment ban is sent out before the actual seizure has been put in place.

In this case, Solaris is obligated to block the account up to the seizure amount for 4 weeks. If no actual seizure comes after this period of time, the block can be removed and the customer can use their account normally again.

How to handle seizures in your solution

note

Before implementing this process, please subscribe to the webhooks described in the section below.

When a seizure occurs on a customer's account(s), it will follow this process:

The process begins with your customer entering into financial debt, where the creditor is a natural person, business, or public authority. The creditor then approaches the court in order to collect the debt or issues the seizure themselves (e.g., if the creditor is a public authority).
The court or public authorities issue the seizure and send it to Solaris. This step defines the type of the seizure.
Solaris enters all the data available in the seizure document into the backend system, detects the relevant customer, and attaches them to the seizure.
You will receive a notification from either the PERSON_SEIZURE_CREATED webhook or the BUSINESS_SEIZURE_CREATED webhook (depending on the customer type).
- Note: You are required to inform all customers with an active account when they receive a seizure. However, Solaris will send webhook notifications for all customers in the system when a seizure is created for them, regardless of whether they have an active account. You are not required to inform customers with inactive accounts when they receive seizures.
The seizure triggers a reservation on the customer's account equal to the seizure amount (or the sum of the seizure amount and additional costs, if applicable).
- In rare cases, the account(s) will be blocked with a locking_reason value of SEIZURE. If this happens, then Solaris is handling the seizure payment manually.
- If the customer has a seizure-protected account (P-Konto), then no reservation will be created. Instead, the seizure will be reflected in the seizure_protection property of the account balance. See the seizure-protected accounts section below for more information.
Display the seizure information to the customer using the GET List all seizures for a person or GET List all seizures for a business endpoint.
When the seizure is settled, then you will receive a notification on either the PERSON_SEIZURE_FULFILLED or BUSINESS_SEIZURE_FULFILLED webhook.
- Note that in the case of a COURT seizure, the court will send a follow-up letter to notify about the fulfillment of the seizure. Therefore, this type of seizure takes longer to fulfill.
- Solaris will send out these webhook notifications for both active and inactive customers. Solaris recommends that you inform both active and inactive customers when their seizures are fulfilled.

note

The amount of a seizure always reflects the total amount of the seizure, even if part of it has already been paid. It does not reflect the outstanding amount of the seizure.

Seizure processing

Solaris handles seizures in the following ways:

Automated

This is the default flow for all seizures. In this flow, Solaris creates a reservation on the customer's account(s), and the seizure payout is automatically scheduled.

Manual

In more complex cases, Solaris may change the seizure process to the manual flow. In this flow, Solaris applies a debit block to the customer's account(s) with a locking_reason value of SEIZURE. The Solaris Operations team will handle these cases manually without an automatically scheduled payout.

The most common cases for manual seizure processing are:

Attachment seizures
Insolvency or social benefits

Note

If the customer has a seizure-protected account (P-Konto), then Solaris does not reflect the seizure with a reservation or a debit block. See the section below for more information.
If a customer has multiple seizures, then all of them will be handled either in the automated or the manual flow. A combination of the two is not possible.

Webhooks

note

The payloads of seizure-related webhooks contain additional information that is not returned by the GET endpoints:

automatic_payout_date: The date when the seizure will be paid out (for seizures in the automated flow).
insolvency: Indicates whether the individual or business for which the seizure was created is insolvent.
social_benefits: Indicates whether the individual for whom the seizure was created receives social benefits.
automated: Indicates whether the seizure is in the automated flow (true) or in the manual flow (false).

Please ensure that your solution pulls this information from the webhook payload.

You are required to subscribe to the following webhooks to receive notifications about seizures and their lifecycles:

BUSINESS_SEIZURE_CREATED: Solaris has received a request from the authorities (e.g., court, governmental agency) to seize the account(s) of a business.
PERSON_SEIZURE_CREATED: Solaris has received a request from the authorities (e.g., court, governmental agency) to seize the account(s) of a person.
BUSINESS_SEIZURE_DELETED: Solaris has removed a seizure for a business because it was created by mistake.
PERSON_SEIZURE_DELETED: Solaris has removed a seizure for a person because it was created by mistake.
BUSINESS_SEIZURE_FULFILLED: The status of a seizure on a business has changed to FULFILLED.
PERSON_SEIZURE_FULFILLED: The status of a seizure on a person has changed to FULFILLED.
BUSINESS_SEIZURE_UPDATED: The processing method for a seizure for a business has switched from manual to automated (in special cases) or vice versa.
PERSON_SEIZURE_UPDATED: The processing method for a seizure for a person has switched from manual to automated (in special cases) or vice versa.
RESERVATION_CREATED: A reservation was created on a customer's account.
RESERVATION_RESOLVED: A reservation on a customer's account was resolved.

note

Although the ATTACHMENT seizure type is not included in the automated flow, Solaris will still send webhook notifications for this type of seizure.

Paying a seizure

Seizures can be paid in one of the following ways:

Payment by Solaris
Manual payment

Solaris performs the following checks when a seizure notice is received:

If the account is not blocked as a result, then Solaris automatically creates a reservation on the customer's account(s). The reservation amount is set to the sum of the seizure and any additional costs.
If the account is blocked as a result, then the seizure cannot be automatically paid. Instead, the customer must reach out to customer service in order to pay the seizure.

Payment by Solaris

Solaris has a legal obligation to pay out available funds to the creditor of the seizure after a certain period of time has passed and the seizure has not yet been fulfilled. In this case, no initiation or involvement of the customer is necessary.

Funds are paid out to creditors after the following periods:

For person accounts: after 4 calendar weeks.
For business accounts: after 5 working days.

Solaris does not execute automatic payouts on holidays or weekends. The automatic payout date is calculated based on the seizure's enactment_date.

Conditions for payment by Solaris:

The seizure has a type of AUTHORITY_SEIZURE or COURT_SEIZURE.
The payout process runs daily until the seizure is fully paid out or fulfilled.
In case an account has a blocking status of DEBIT_BLOCK or BLOCK, Solaris handles the payout manually.
Solaris automatically fills in the creditor's (or the creditor representative's) details, as well as the resolution case number, in the corresponding SEPA Credit Transfer.
If the customer has multiple SEPA-connected accounts, Solaris ranks the accounts by the amount of the seizure reservation, starting from the highest to the lowest.
If there are multiple seizures for one customer, the seizure with the earliest delivery date must be paid out first.
The seizure cannot be paid out by using the account limit (e.g., overdraft, decoupled cards).
The account must not be blocked.

Manual payment

This process covers all the edge cases that could not be covered in the automated processes. The most common cases are accounts with a DEBIT_BLOCK or BLOCK.

Please consult with your Partner Manager to learn about the process for handling such cases.

Seizure-protected accounts (P-Konto)

note

Seizure-protected accounts are only available in Germany.

Solaris represents seizures differently for seizure-protected accounts (P-Konto). For this type of account, instead of creating a reservation or a debit block, Solaris represents the seizure in the account balance resource.

When you call the GET Show account balance endpoint for a seizure-protected account, the API will return two additional objects besides the balance and available_balance:

seizure_protection: An object that describes the current seizure protection state of the account. It includes the amount that has been blocked by a seizure and the amount that is seizure-protected. It includes the following objects:
- current_blocked_amount: The current amount unavailable to the customer because it has been blocked by a seizure. This amount is in excess of the current protected amount. In the next month, the monthly allowance out of this amount will be released to the customer and the excess will remain blocked.
- protected_amount: The seizure-protected funds for the current month plus any seizure-protected funds that rolled over from the previous month(s).
- protected_amount_expiring: The amount of seizure-protected funds rolled over from previous months that will expire if the customer does not spend them by the end of the current month.
protected_amount_expiring_date: The date when the funds described in protected_amount_expiring will expire. Note that this is calculated based on the UTC time zone.

Example:

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{
    "balance": {
        "value": 20000,
        "unit": "cents",
        "currency": "EUR"
    },
    "available_balance": {
        "value": 15000,
        "unit": "cents",
        "currency": "EUR"
    },
    "seizure_protection": {
        "current_blocked_amount": {
            "value": 1000,
            "unit": "cents",
            "currency": "EUR"
        },
        "protected_amount": {
            "value": 500,
            "unit": "cents",
            "currency": "EUR"
        },
        "protected_amount_expiring": {
            "value": 0,
            "unit": "cents",
            "currency": "EUR"
        },
        "protected_amount_expiring_date": "2021-10-31"
    }
}

Seizures

Introduction

Seizure resource

Note

Types of seizures

How to handle seizures in your solution

note

note

Seizure processing

Automated

Manual

Note

Webhooks

note

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Paying a seizure

Payment by Solaris

Manual payment

Seizure-protected accounts (P-Konto)

note

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