A large number of people in Serbia face forced eviction from their only homes. Photo: Joint Action Roof Over Your Head“To stop bailiffs and city authorities from turning people into homeless individuals and demolishing one of the few temporary shelters for our most vulnerable fellow citizens, we invite you to join your local or municipal assembly and propose support for our assembly’s demands,” states the accompanying announcement.

The first Belgrade Assembly to Abolish Bailiffs and Inflated Debts took place on 30 March in Manjež Park. Members of the “Roof Over Your Head” Joint Action, who initiated the assembly, explained on social media: “Students have invited us all to organise citizens’ plenums—assemblies—to jointly tackle our problems and those of society as a whole. As an informal group open to everyone, we have been fighting for eight years for the right to housing and against the bailiff mafia.”

The “Roof Over Your Head” initiative has therefore called citizens to assemble and demand the abolition of mechanisms generating false debts and the elimination of private (so-called “public”) bailiffs responsible for collecting such debts.

During the first Assembly to Abolish Bailiffs and Inflated Debts, participants discussed, voted on, and adopted all demands included on the agenda, as well as operating rules and initial actions aimed at achieving these objectives, according to the “Roof Over Your Head” Joint Action via social media.

The Assembly unanimously passed the demand to abolish “public” bailiffs, to protect real estate serving as the only home of debtors and their families from forced execution, and to return enforcement proceedings to the actual control of courts—meaning bailiffs should once again become court employees rather than private entrepreneurs.

Until these demands are met, the Assembly decided that unpaid utility bills and related charges should exclusively be collected by municipal bailiffs. Currently, private bailiffs collect debts on behalf of utility companies, causing an unpaid bill of, for example, 1,000 dinars (8.5 EUR), to grow tenfold due to interest and “enforcement fees.”

The Assembly also passed demands for the cancellation of all illegitimate debts related to utility services and enforcement “fees” and “rewards,” as well as compensation for people who had to pay illegitimate enforcement costs from 2011 to the present.

Additional demands included abolishing interest charges on overdue utility bills from both public and private companies and discontinuing the Infostan service , given that its “consolidated billing” service is expensive and completely unnecessary in the 21^st century. Other useful Infostan services should be transferred to different city departments.

The Assembly voted to support the demands of residents from the Kamendin social housing settlement, who request an immediate halt to planned forced evictions from social housing and an end to the absurd situation in which their utility bills exceed the social assistance payments necessary for eligibility to social housing.

Finally, the Assembly proposed an agenda item for the next meeting—support for all residents of Belgrade facing homelessness or the threat of forced eviction. City authorities simultaneously seek to evict 19 families from social housing while announcing the demolition of one of the few temporary shelters for homeless people.

“To stop bailiffs and city authorities from turning people into homeless individuals and demolishing one of the few temporary shelters for our most vulnerable fellow citizens, we invite you to join your local or municipal assembly and propose support for our assembly’s demands,” states the accompanying announcement.

The next Assembly will take place on Sunday, 13 April, at 5 p.m. in Manjež Park.