Debt Review cannot make you lose your home or your vehicle. It can however save your home and vehicle, but this will obviously depend on your unique circumstances. Factors that will determine this will include the following:
- Have you received a Section 129 letter from your Credit Provider, and if so, how long ago? If you receive a Section 129 letter from your Credit Provider, you will have 10 working days in which you can obtain the services of a Debt Counsellor, who will endeavour to save the asset.
- Have you been served with a summons in respect of your mortgage bond or vehicle finance?
- How many vehicles do you have and what are they used for? Quad bikes and Jet ski’s will for example be regarded as luxury vehicles and might have to be returned to the bank.
- Are you giving your full cooperation in the program?
The bottomline remains that you will always be in a better position to keep your home and your vehicle when you are under Debt Review, rather than trying to fight off the banks yourself.
It is different for everybody, as every individual’s situation is unique. In order to lower your monthly instalments, we have to extend your repayment periods. In some cases we manage to convince Credit Providers to also lower their interest rates, which means that your repayment period will not be stretched too much.
Your debt repayment plan will indicate exactly when your last day of payment will be.
No, you do not have to appear in Court, as your Debt Counsellor will be the applicant and you will merely be a respondent. As soon as our attorneys notify us of the outcome, we will immediately notify you of same.
In the unlikely event that the magistrate do request your presence, it would merely be to establish certain facts. You will not be questioned by any attorneys or anything like that, as this would merely be a court application and not an action procedure.
No, whilst you are under Debt Review, your Credit Providers will not be in a position to “blacklist” you. If the “blacklisting” took place before you applied for Debt Review, it will however reflect on your credit record. This is a further reason why you should rather apply earlier than later for Debt Review.
In the unlikely event that the magistrate do request your presence, it would merely be to establish certain facts. You will not be questioned by any attorneys or anything like that, as this would merely be a court application and not an action procedure.
Whilst you are under Debt Review, a flag indicating that you are under Debt Review will be present behind your name at the Credit Bureaux. Once you have satisfied your debt obligations, we will instruct the Credit Bureaux to remove the flag and there will be no indication that you have ever been under Debt Review.
If you however do not apply for Debt Review, the situation is much worse. If you skip monthly instalments on any of your Credit Agreements, whether it is a Mortgage Bond or a mere clothing account, this will be listed as non payments.
For purposes of obtaining credit in the future when you are back on your feet again, it would therefore be an obvious choice to rather opt for Debt Review than to try and juggle your Credit Providers by paying them less than your original instalment or not paying all of them timeously.
Debt Counselling evolved a great deal since it was launched in June 2007 by the National Credit Act. As is the case with the implementation of almost all new legislation, all the grey areas in the Act had to be found and tested in court in order to have the Act run smoothly. We are convinced that the industry has already reached the point where Debt Counselling is now running the way it was intended to by the legislator. We have successfully helped thousands of people since the inception of Debt Counselling back in 2007 and we are happy to see that more and more people are realizing that the system is working. So the answer is yes, Debt Counselling does work.
In some isolated cases there were some bad apples in the industry in the form of Debt Counsellors who were in it for a quick buck. Most of these bad apples have since been worked out of the system, ensuring a dependable industry that is helping thousands of South Africans to deal with their financial distress. South Africa has managed to bring Debt Counselling to a point where it is regarded as one of the most successful of its sort in the world.
It is imperative that you choose the correct Debt Counsellor though, as we are of the opinion that there are still certain Debt Counsellors in the industry who do not possess the necessary skills, competence and experience to offer you the full benefits that Debt Counselling can offer.