Law firm guidesInsolvency and debt relief

They want to revoke the debt discharge you already obtained

Last updated 2026-09-01 · Reviewed by Jaime Piñeira Pardo, registered with the ICAM bar, no. 138826

The short answer

Discharge granted with a payment plan is provisional until the plan is performed: article 498.2 TRLC speaks of a provisional grant and article 500.1 turns it into a final one only if the period runs without the discharge having been revoked. Throughout those three or five years the matter is defended before the insolvency judge, with evidence that you complied with what the plan required.

Two years ago the court granted you discharge with a five year payment plan and you are twenty four instalments in, all paid on time. This summer your mother died and you inherited half a flat in her village, valued at 70,000 euros. A bank left 45,000 euros short found out through the Registro público concursal (the public insolvency register) and has filed a request to strip you of the debt cancellation. They are not accusing you of breaching the plan: they are accusing you of improving.

The case, in five lines

What is brought: Opposing revocation of the provisionally granted discharge, and applying for final discharge of the unpaid liabilities when the payment plan ends.
Before which court: The insolvency judge, that is the sección de lo Mercantil of the Tribunal de Instancia (the commercial division of the first instance court) that granted the discharge, and the Audiencia Provincial (the provincial appellate court) if the decision has to be appealed.
Deadline: The exposure lasts as long as the payment plan: three years as a rule and five in the cases listed in article 497.2 TRLC, counted from the date the plan was approved by the court. Once that period passes without revocation, the discharge becomes final.
Who can bring it: On the debtor's side, the person who obtained the discharge. On the other, the creditors on the record in the insolvency case, who are the ones served and heard before any decision is taken.
Financial risk: If the discharge is revoked, the discharged debts become enforceable again with everything accrued and the creditors recover their remedies. If it holds, the final discharge order admits no appeal at all and closes the matter.

Discharge under a payment plan is granted provisionally and nobody told you

Article 498.2 TRLC says in terms that the judge, having verified the statutory requirements, the content of the payment plan and the objective prospects of it being performed, shall refuse or provisionally grant the discharge of unpaid liabilities. The word provisionally is not decoration: it describes the legal position you have been living in since the order you celebrated.

Article 500.1 closes the circle: once the period set for performance of the payment plan has elapsed without the discharge having been revoked, the insolvency judge shall issue an order granting final discharge of the unpaid liabilities. It is the statute itself that contemplates revocation within that period, which is why a creditor can attempt it.

And paragraph 3 explains why it is worth reaching the end intact: the decision granting final discharge is published in the Registro público concursal and no appeal whatsoever lies against it. Until that order everything is open; after it, nothing is. The defence consists in getting there without anyone having managed to revoke anything.

The window of risk lasts exactly as long as your payment plan

Article 497 TRLC sets the duration: as a rule the payment plan lasts three years. It lasts five in two cases, where the debtor's habitual residence and, where relevant, the family's is not realised, and where the amount of the payments depends exclusively or fundamentally on the evolution of the debtor's income and available resources. Almost anyone who keeps their home is on the long clock.

Paragraph 3 says when it starts running, which is the question almost nobody asks in time: the period of the payment plan begins to run from the date of judicial approval. Not from the declaration of insolvency, nor from its conclusion, nor from the date you started paying of your own accord. From the judicial approval of the plan.

Knowing the exact date changes the strategy. If you have eight months of plan left, the defence is organised so as to reach the article 500.1 order with performance proved month by month. If you have three years left, the position has to be held for three years, documenting every instalment, every source of income and every change of circumstances along the way.

What is judged is the plan approved for you, not what has happened to you

Article 496 TRLC requires the proposed payment plan to include the calendar of payments for the dischargeable claims that are to be met, and to list in detail the resources envisaged for performing it, for the non dischargeable debts and for new maintenance obligations or those arising from subsistence, having regard to the debtor's future income and available resources and to their foreseeable variation over the life of the plan.

That detail is now your best document. The approved plan states what you undertook to pay, with what resources and on what calendar, and also which assignments of assets in payment were agreed, since the same article allows them subject to value requirements and to the creditor's consent. Against a generic filing, the answer is given with the plan in hand.

Article 498.1 also recalls that the creditors on the record were able, at the time, to propose measures limiting or prohibiting the debtor's powers of disposal or administration during the payment plan. If the creditor did not ask for them then and the plan does not contain them, it can hardly complain today about conduct that the approved plan did not forbid.

Even if you did not complete the plan, article 500.2 can save you

This is the least used valve in the whole debt relief regime. Article 500.2 TRLC allows the judge, even where the debtor has not fully performed the payment plan and after hearing the creditors, to grant final discharge where the failure resulted from accident or illness, or from other serious and unforeseeable events, affecting the debtor or those living with them.

The provision imposes two conditions and they are worth reading slowly: the debtor must in any event have complied with the limitations or prohibitions on powers of disposal or administration, and with the assignment in payment measures laid down in the plan. In other words, being unable to pay is forgiven; breaching the rules of conduct is not.

Hence the debtor who fell ill and missed three instalments but sold and hid nothing has a case, while the one who paid punctually but broke a prohibition on disposal has a problem. The evidence on this route is documentary and personal: medical reports, sick leave records, social services reports, and proof that the plan's limitations were respected.

All of this is fought before the insolvency judge, not the court that seized your assets

Jurisdiction does not scatter. Article 499.2 TRLC requires declaratory and enforcement actions by creditors of non dischargeable debt, or of new obligations assumed by the debtor during the payment plan, to be brought before the insolvency judge and through the incidente concursal (the insolvency ancillary proceedings). Your matter remains an insolvency matter for as long as the plan lasts.

That has an immediate practical consequence: filings arriving during the plan from other courts or from collection bodies are not answered as though nothing had happened. They are answered by invoking the order granting provisional discharge, the perimeter of what was discharged under article 489 TRLC, and the procedural route the statute itself reserves to the insolvency judge.

And if the judge nonetheless orders revocation, that decision is challenged on appeal before the Audiencia Provincial (the provincial appellate court) within twenty days of service, in a document that already contains every single argument, because article 458.2 LEC does not allow the appellant to hold reasoning back for a later brief. There is no later brief in the appeal.

How we run the case, step by step

1
Pinning down the exact date the payment plan expires
We locate the order approving the plan and calculate its expiry, three or five years under article 497 TRLC. That date marks the end of the window of risk and determines whether the strategy is to hold out for months or to sustain the position for years.
2
Reconstructing performance instalment by instalment
We gather the receipt for every payment made under the plan calendar, the income declared and any assignments in payment agreed. The aim is that performance is not an assertion of yours but a document the judge can count.
3
Answering the creditor's filing with the approved plan in hand
We contrast what the creditor complains of with what the approved plan actually required of you, including the limitations or prohibitions on disposal that this same creditor could have requested at the time and did not. What the plan did not forbid can hardly become a breach today.
4
Preparing the article 500.2 route if instalments went unpaid
If the missed payments stem from accident, illness or another serious and unforeseeable event affecting you or someone living with you, we document it with medical records, sick leave certificates and reports, and prove that the plan's limitations and assignments were in fact complied with.
5
Applying for final discharge on expiry
Once the period has run without revocation, we press for the article 500.1 order and monitor its publication in the Registro público concursal. No appeal lies against that decision, so obtaining it closes the matter for good.

The evidence that decides the case

The court order approving the payment plan, which fixes the date from which the period runs and the exact content of what you undertook to do.
Bank receipts for every instalment paid under the plan calendar, ordered by date and cross checked against the calendar itself.
Personal income tax returns for the years covered by the plan, showing the real evolution of your income and available resources.
The deed of acceptance or allocation of the inheritance with the valuation of the asset and its charges, where the creditor bases its filing on a supervening change in your assets.
Medical records, sick leave certificates and social services reports where the failure to perform stems from accident, illness or another serious and unforeseeable event.
A certificate from the public insolvency register on the publicity given to the grant, proving what was made public and from when.

What closes the door

Believing the granting order already closed the matter. While the payment plan is running the grant is provisional, and only the article 500.1 order makes it final and unappealable.
Stopping keeping payment receipts after the first few months. Performance is proved instalment by instalment, and the burden of showing it falls on the person asserting it.
Disposing of an asset during the plan without first checking whether the approved plan contained limitations or prohibitions on powers of disposal or administration.
Answering directly to a court or a collection body that claims during the plan, instead of taking the matter to the insolvency judge, whom the statute designates.
Letting the twenty day appeal period lapse if revocation is in fact ordered, or lodging a short document that holds the reasoning back for later.

The law that applies

Art. 500 TRLC. Turns the discharge into a final one where the payment plan period elapses without revocation, allows it to be granted despite a failure caused by accident, illness or other serious and unforeseeable events provided the plan's limitations and assignments in payment were respected, and provides that the decision is published in the public insolvency register and admits no appeal. BOE-A-2020-4859
Art. 497 TRLC. Sets the payment plan at three years as a rule and at five where the debtor's habitual residence and, where relevant, the family's is not realised, or where the payments depend exclusively or fundamentally on the evolution of income and available resources, and provides that the period runs from judicial approval. BOE-A-2020-4859
Art. 498 TRLC. Serves the proposed payment plan on the creditors on the record for ten day submissions and for proposing measures limiting or prohibiting the debtor's powers of disposal or administration, and empowers the judge to refuse or provisionally grant discharge, approving the plan with whatever changes are considered appropriate. BOE-A-2020-4859
Art. 496 TRLC. Requires the plan to contain the payment calendar for dischargeable claims and a detailed account of the resources envisaged to perform it, allows assignments in payment subject to fair value and creditor consent, and forbids the plan from amounting to a total liquidation of the estate or altering the statutory order of payment without the postponed creditors' consent. BOE-A-2020-4859
Art. 499 TRLC. Extends discharge to the part of the dischargeable liabilities that will remain unpaid under the plan, and reserves to the insolvency judge, through the insolvency ancillary proceedings, the declaratory and enforcement actions of creditors of non dischargeable debt and of new obligations assumed during the plan. BOE-A-2020-4859
Art. 495 TRLC. Regulates the application for discharge under a payment plan without liquidation of the estate, requires the debtor to accept that the grant be recorded in the public insolvency register for five years or the shorter period of the plan, requires the last three years of personal and household income tax returns, and allows it to be filed before liquidation is ordered. BOE-A-2020-4859

Each article checked against the consolidated text published in the BOE (the Spanish official gazette).

Frequently asked questions

My discharge was granted two years ago, how can it be taken away now

Because a grant under a payment plan is born provisional. Article 498.2 TRLC uses that very word and article 500.1 grants final discharge only once the period set for performing the plan has elapsed without revocation. While the plan runs, the matter remains alive before the insolvency judge and any creditor on the record can try to have it reviewed.

I inherited a property during the payment plan, do I lose everything

Not automatically. What the judge examines is what the approved plan required of you, and that plan, under article 496 TRLC, contains the payment calendar, the envisaged resources and any assignments in payment agreed. If the plan contained no limitations or prohibitions on disposal, and you have kept paying under the calendar, the position is defended with documents rather than explanations.

I missed two instalments because of an illness, is it over

Not necessarily. Article 500.2 TRLC allows the judge to grant final discharge even where the plan was not fully performed, after hearing the creditors, where the failure results from accident or illness or other serious and unforeseeable events affecting the debtor or those living with them, provided the plan's limitations, prohibitions and assignments in payment were complied with.

When does my discharge stop being revocable

When the article 500.1 order arrives. That order is issued once the period set for performing the plan has elapsed without the discharge being revoked, a period article 497 sets at three years, or five in the cases it lists, counted from judicial approval of the plan. The decision is published in the public insolvency register and no appeal lies against it.

A bank is claiming against me in another court during the plan, what do I do

You do not simply answer there as if the insolvency case did not exist. Article 499.2 TRLC reserves to the insolvency judge, through the insolvency ancillary proceedings, the declaratory and enforcement actions of creditors of non dischargeable debt and of new obligations assumed during the payment plan. The first step is to check whether that debt fell inside or outside the discharged perimeter.

This guide explains how the action works in general. It does not replace the study of your own case: deadlines depend on when things happened and on what you have done since.