INFORMATION REGARDING THE SURRENDERING OF YOUR ESTATE
The surrendering of your estate is a process instituted by the Courts to help persons that are no longer in a position to honor their debts due to uncontrollable circumstances.
Surrender enables you to regain normality in your financial affairs – where you can adjust your lifestyle to be in line with the available budget, without creditor headaches. You will experience a normal lifestyle without the fear that creditors will phone you day and night from “private numbers” and therefore you can answer your calls fearlessly, and no more fear that the sheriff may make an unwanted house-call.
What are the advantages?
- Most importantly – ALL YOUR DEBT IS WRITTEN OFF – including the debt already blacklisted on ITC. (You will not have to pay back any of your creditors and you will be completely debt free).
- You will no longer be liable towards your creditors, including banks, personal loans, TAX etc.
- You will no longer need to communicate with any of your creditors, we will handle all communications.
- After your voluntary surrender your FULL income will remain your own. All garnishee orders against your salary will be stopped or cancelled.
- All other garnishee orders or deductions from your bank accounts shall stop.
- You do NOT need to appear in court or communicate with your creditors.
- You will be able to keep your furniture and other movable assets.
- You will be able to keep your vehicle/s if it is paid up to date or is under a lease agreement and not a HP agreement.
- Within 2 years after your voluntary surrender you will be able to apply for rehabilitation.
- After the Rehabilitation your Credit Record and ITC will be clean and you can continue debt free with your life.
- What are the disadvantages?
- You will be insolvent for at least the next 2 years. You can after 24 months apply for Rehabilitation and you will be creditworthy again with a clean ITC record. There are circumstances where you can apply for rehabilitation after 18 months. For your insolvency period, you will not be credit worthy. You may receive permission from you curator in creditable circumstances for example when you need to purchase a vehicle
- You may not have a current account or a credit card facility. You may under no circumstances incur any debt. What will it cost me?
- An administration fee is payable for processing your application in the High Court. As soon as we receive your Application form we will be able to give you the total cost that you will have to cover and then it will be up to you to decide if you want to continue. Here with a short summary of the procedure.1. We publish an advert in the Government Gazette and the Citizen. This will prevent any further legal procedures against you i.e. execution notices, seizure on your movable and/or immovable property, etc. 2. An ability statement is drafted that you must sign before a Commissioner of Oaths. This document is submitted for inspection at the Master of the High Court for 14 days or with the local Magistrate. 3. Thereafter a registered letter is forwarded to all your creditors as notice of the surrendering of your estate. Your creditors will then contact me for information. You will also be provided with the same notice to enable you to forward to nagging creditors. If your vehicle is under hire purchase, the Rules of Court stipulate that any bank may repossess the vehicle. Keep in mind that the whole process will take a few months and that you will still have use of your vehicle for the next 5-6 months without paying anybody.Vehicles registered in another person, or legal persons, name will not form part of the estate also if your vehicle is paid up it will not form part of the application.Lastly I assure you that I, at all times, am honest in my advice to you and that I will handle your situation with discretion.
- What happens to your Vehicle?
- * Failure to comply with the arrangements made with the curator may result in removal of the furniture.
- 8. We will send you a list so that you can list all your movable assets like furniture. Your furniture will never leave your house. The purpose thereof, as you do not own immovable property (e.g. a house), is to do movable asset surrender. On paper you will then buy your furniture back from the Curator that is what the R2333.00 in the example that we used above is used for. Once the application has been approved and granted in the Court the Curator will contact you to confirm the details in respect of your assets.
- 7. The Court Rules determine that you pay 22c in a rand back to your creditors. In other words if you owe FNB, R1-00, you must pay them at least 22c back. If your total debt is R200 000, you will pay R44 000.00 back to the Curator who will distribute it to your creditors (Please note that these are approximate figures). Arrangements may be made with the curator to settle the amount with them in installments between 12 to 19 months. Therefore, if you owe the Curator R44 000, you can repay it in installments of R2 445.00 per month for 18 months – there are no further interest or costs thereon. Please note that when you apply we will be able to give you the exact amount that you will have to pay back to the Curator.
- 6. After the application has been approved and granted by the Court, a curator is appointed to handle all financial matters on your behalf. The curator will contact you to arrange a consultation to explain the details to you. If you live outside of Pretoria or Johannesburg a telephonic consultation will suffice.
- 5. At the day of the Court proceedings an Advocate will represent you; there will be no need to attend any court hearing in person.
- 4. The South African Revenue Services are also notified, even if you are not registered with SARS.