You are usually over-indebted when you are paying more than half of your salary to debt, not making timeous payments on your debts and constantly getting reminders for late payments. Or if you are at risk of falling behind in the immediate future. These are sure signs that you urgently need our help. If you delay applying for debt counselling, and once the credit provider has commenced legal action against you, that particular debt cannot be included in the debt review process.

The credit market has recently been tightened by the NCR such that you will not qualify for a consolidation loan if you are over-indebted, not with us or not with any registered financial institution in South Africa. If your current debt status is that you are over-indebted, you do not have the option of a consolidation loan. The only realistic and affordable way to prevent you from losing your house, car or furniture is to go the debt review way. Our debt review process can offer you immediate asset protection according to the National Credit Act and set you on a course of recovery from debt problems by consolidating your debt into one affordable monthly repayment, reducing your monthly debt repayments and interest and clearing your credit record after you have fulfilled your restructured debt obligations.

Service fees are set and regulated by the National Credit Regulator (NCR).

1. A restructuring fee of the lesser amount of the first instalment of the debt re-arrangement plan or a maximum of R8000 (excluding VAT). For example, if you can only pay R3 000 per month as your new instalment, our fee will automatically be R3000.
2. A monthly after-care fee of 5% (excluding VAT) of the monthly instalment of the debt re-arrangement plan up to a maximum of R500.00 (excluding Vat) for the remaining period of the debt payment of the monthly after-care fee commence in the 2nd month after the amount in point 1 has been paid.

There is a legal fee charged by our specialised attorney to bring the application to the court is usually equal to the restructuring fee. The legal fee differs from case to case and your debt counsellor will let you advise the exact amount after the free assessment

Certainly not. Administration only applies to consumers whose total debt do not exceed R50,000 and usually lasts much longer and is much costlier. The debt review process we aim that you achieve a debt free status within 36 to 60 months.

Pros:

1. Once you have made an application for debt review, credit providers can no longer attach any assets or take any further legal action against the consumer pending a determination by a debt counsellor as to whether the consumer is actually “over-indebted” or not. Should the consumer be over-indebted the consumer continues under debt review until all debt is settled.
2. There is no permanent record of being under debt review kept on any Consumer Credit Bureau Data Base, meaning that unlike administration or other avenues, the process leaves no black mark against your name.
3. The debt counsellor will set aside a certain amount of income for your necessities (food, school fees, transport costs, etc.) and you then use whatever money you have leftover to pay your debts. You will never pay more money than you can reasonably afford.
4. A registered debt counsellor is far more likely to get a positive response from your creditors when it comes to negotiating your repayments than you might as a consumer.
5. While under “debt review”, you only make one monthly payment. A Payment Distribution Agency will in turn pay all your creditors. This one easy payment will make your finances much easier to manage and reduce your banking fees.
6. A qualified debt counsellor will be able to advise you on ways to cut your monthly costs.
7. Relief from all the stress of being in debt. You will get good advice and know that you are doing something about the problem. Knowing that one day the debt will go, as will any record of it puts your mind at ease. No more letters you are too scared to open. No more phone calls you are too nervous to answer. Dealing with the problem rather than ignoring it gives you an instant feeling of relief.

Cons:

While under debt review a person can no longer get access to new credit (which you don’t want and cannot access anyway). While this may seem to be a negative thing, it is actually built into the process to protect consumers from becoming further indebted and to protect credit providers from being accused of “reckless lending”.

You cannot be listed on ITC when you apply for debt review. We simply notify the credit bureaus to merely flag your name that you are undergoing a debt restructuring process. Note very well that, this is not related to blacklisting because you can only be blacklisted when you totally fail to pay a credit provider. Thus, the flag is simply an indication to credit providers that you are under debt review. As soon as all your debt has been paid up you are eligible to access credit finance again.

Not necessarily. However, this can apply if you have an overdraft account because overdraft will be part of your debt and the bank will freeze the account. If you have a normal cheque account and are not willing to change your banking details, we can provide you with debit order cancellation forms which you sign and we send to your credit providers to cancel the debit orders. Provided this process is done well in time credit providers are more than willing to cancel the debit orders. Even though we notify your creditors immediately of your debt review application there is still a possibility that debit orders can go off your bank account.

Having said all that, the best usually would be you to change to what we call a neutral bank account where there are no debit orders, so that we can protect your income.

No. We cannot include any accounts in the debt review process where legal action has commenced. It is therefore important that you apply for debt review sooner rather than later. If you already have a garnishee order against you, we can make provision for the monthly amount in your budget and can also take upon ourselves and go a step further to negotiate with garnishor to reduce your payment amount to something affordable to you, but is paid outside debt review.

New regulation now allows us to issue you a clearance certificate once all your unsecured debt has been paid off. If you still cannot afford the full bond installment, we advise that you continue with debt review until such time that you are in a position to pay the full required installment on your own.

Not at all, we will never contact your employer to obtain any information or to confirm anything. Your debt review application is treated as fully confidential through the entire application and debt review process.

Debt counselling does not negatively affect your credit record and actually improves it during the process. Your credit report will indicate that you are under debt counselling so that you won’t be able to access more debt. All history of debt counselling will be removed after you have been issued your clearance certificate.

Certain individuals have faced difficulties in the past with regards to employment opportunities while being under debt counselling. Many employers did not have the correct understanding of how debt counselling actually worked when it was first introduced. Things have changed and employers are now more aware. So signing up for debt counselling should not have any impact on your current job or on future employment opportunities or prospects.

In 2007 debt counselling was developed in South Africa and introduced as a positive rehabilitation process to assist consumers struggling with debt, and is viewed by most employers in a positive light. Within most occupations, it is important that you are able to show that you can manage your personal finances, especially if your job entails advising others on money management or financial services. Most employers will feel that if you can’t manage your own money properly; you would not be able to give other individuals sound financial advice.

Debt counselling is voluntary and, therefore, by taking your own initiative to sign up for this rehabilitation process, you are taking a responsible step towards repaying your debts, therefore, showing your employer that you are attempting to take control of your finances instead of neglecting them. Missing your debt repayments will result in defaults and judgments against your name. These will show that you are failing to address your debt problems and are not taking responsibility for your actions which means employers are most likely to view this in a negative light and will be hesitant to hire you. This will be seen in a worse light than making an effort to try to resolve your problem.

Our debt counselling companies deal with clients from a variety of industries and always ensure confidentiality as employers are not informed about the client’s debt review status. Should a potential employer conduct a credit check and see that you are under debt counselling, it should not have an impact on your chance of success. However, if necessary, our debt counselling companies will provide clients with a letter stating that they are under debt counselling informing the employer about the process.

Since Insurance policies are not credit agreements, they will not be affected by debt counselling. Insurance policies fall under your monthly living expenses (budget). For that reason, your insurance policies debit orders will continue as per normal.

Credit providers may reject the proposed debt repayment. However, when New Debt Plan does your assessment we usually advise what new payment plan the Credit Providers can accept. In a worst case scenario, there is a Magistrate Court to make a final decision should the credit providers reject