FAQ's
Frequently Asked Questions
If you are over-indebted and falling behind with your debt repayments, debt review can protect your assets and give you breathing space. This debt protection forms part of the National Credit Act. Credit providers cannot take legal action against you if you go under debt review. DC Experts will consolidate all your debt into one monthly payment which is affordable based on your circumstances, and reduces your interest rates, in some cases up to zero%. This means that aside from the protection of your assets, you will also end up paying less for your debt on a monthly basis, albeit on a longer term.
You qualify for debt review if you are over-indebted. This means you are struggling with your debt repayments and have fallen behind, or are at risk of falling behind. You also need to be earning a monthly income – you will not qualify if you are unemployed. You could qualify for debt review even if you are blacklisted, or if you have a bad credit record.
You should consider debt review if you are unable to meet all your debt repayments in full (your personal loans, retail store cards, credit cards, bond, car, etc) while still having sufficient funds over to pay for your monthly living expenses like rent, food, electricity, school fees, petrol/taxi fare, data/airtime, medical bills, insurance, etc. By going under debt review you will ensure the protection of your assets, and avoid legal action by your credit providers. Debt review helps to reduce your monthly repayments and your interest rates, making your financial situation more manageable immediately.
The exact costs will depend on the type of debt you have and your monthly repayment amount that we negotiate with your credit providers. There will be a debt counselling fee and a legal fee applicable, however both the debt counselling and legal fees are incorporated into your debt restructuring plan which means that you will not need to pay any additional or upfront fees in order for your application to be processed. The debt counselling fees that we charge are regulated by the National Credit Regulator and should be the same regardless of which registered debt review company you use. We do not charge the guideline application fee, and some debt counsellors do. The legal fees are also determined based on the type of debt that you have and your monthly repayment amount. The main point to remember regarding the costs, is that your quoted monthly payment is all inclusive.
No, you will never have to attend any court proceedings, as DC Experts’ nominated attorneys will obtain the court order for you. The legal fees relating to the court order is included in your reduced monthly debt repayment amount.
We appoint attorneys to obtain a court granted Order for you. This is to prevent creditors from wrongfully terminating your application. You are then legally protected and your creditor providers will not be able to terminate your debt restructuring agreement or take any legal action against you.
When you apply for debt review, we notify all your creditors to cancel your debit orders. We allow enough time for the credit providers to process these debit order cancellations. We do however suggest that you contact us immediately in the unlikely event there are unauthorized money grabs by your creditors, so that we can assist you in sorting this out with the credit providers.
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The debt review process as such is not classified as a credit agreement and you will therefore be able to rent a property. In fact, we will make provision for your rent expense in your debt restructuring budget and can provide the agent or lessor with a letter that confirms that you are in a position to pay your monthly rent.
You have the option to cancel the debt review process once all your unsecured debt has been paid off. If you still cannot afford the full bond instalment, we suggest that you continue with debt review until such time that you are in a position to pay the full required instalment on your own.
You will not qualify for a consolidation loan if you are over-indebted, not with any credit provider, as granting of loans are dependent on affordability, and credit providers will not risk a reckless credit claim. The only way to prevent you from losing your assets is to go under debt review. Our debt review process fully protects your assets, as per the National Credit Act. We help you to manage your bad-debt situation by consolidating your debt into one affordable monthly repayment, reducing your monthly debt repayments & interest and clearing your credit record after you have fulfilled your restructured debt obligations.
Some of DC Experts debt counsellors have been registered with the National Credit Regulator (NCR) since 2009 shortly after inception of debt review. At DC Experts you have access to some of the best minds and most experienced DC’s in the Industry. You can view our registration certificates by clicking the NCR debt counsellor register link under Resources. All our DC’s are registered with the NCR and have years of experience in advising consumers on the appropriate debt solutions which are applicable to their circumstances.
You will immediately experience the relief that our debt review process offers. Within the first 5 days, we will work out a provisional repayment plan for you which is based on what you can afford. In terms of the provisional repayment plan, you will make a single monthly payment to a NCR appointed Payment Distribution Agency (PDA) who will then distribute the funds to your creditors based on your repayment plan. During the first 60 working days of the debt review process, your credit providers will not be allowed to implement any legal action against you. During this 60-day period, we will prepare your final repayment plan which may differ slightly from the provisional plan – one example is that we may be able to negotiate better than expected interest rates on one or more of your accounts than anticipated or vice versa.
You need a monthly income in order for us to propose a reduced debt repayment plan to your credit providers. You will therefore not qualify for debt review if you are currently unemployed. We therefore suggest that you contact us again for assistance once you become reemployed, should you still be overindebted.
No, 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.
No, it should not have a negative impact when you apply for another job in the future. In our opinion, if a new employer does a credit check on you and picks up that you are under Debt Review, it will obtain you respect, as the employer will realise that you did the responsible thing when you started to experience financial problems. Alternatively, if the employer picks up that you have defaults on your credit record and you did not try to fix it, it would not send a good message at all.
In terms of the National Credit Act, debt counsellors are allowed to lower your monthly instalments by extending your repayment periods and by lowering your current interest rates in negotiation with your credit providers. We have extensive experience in dealing with the full spectrum of credit providers in South Africa and understand the process at an in-depth level through years of practical experience – no one is therefore better positioned to restructure your debt repayments.
As soon as you apply for debt review through DC Experts, we will within 5 days as per the guidelines (but usually on the same day you apply) notify all your credit providers that you are going under debt review and from that point onwards they must, by law, communicate with your debt counsellor and not with you directly. It does unfortunately happen from time to time that some credit providers take a chance by making contact with our clients directly, but when this happens, you can merely refer them to us and we will deal with the matter further.
The determining factor will be reasonableness. If you can prove that you were not in a position to pay because you were in hospital and you work on a no work no pay basis, for example, we can send a notification to your Credit Providers explaining the circumstances. In all probability, you may be excused and your Debt Review will continue when you resume your payment the following month. It is very important to note that Debt Review does not provide payment holidays and should never be abused in order to evade your financial obligations.