How to Get Your Debt Review Clearance Certificate (Form 19)

What the clearance certificate is

The clearance certificate, prescribed as Form 19, is the document that formally ends your debt review and triggers the removal of the record from the credit bureaux. Without it, the debt review flag stays on your credit record.

Section 71(1) requires the debt counsellor to issue it within seven days of you meeting the requirements. It is a duty, not a favour.

You may not have to pay off your bond first

This is the most valuable and least-known provision in the whole exit process, and it comes from section 71(1)(b) as substituted by the National Credit Amendment Act 19 of 2014.

You are entitled to a clearance certificate if you have satisfied all obligations under every agreement subject to the re-arrangement. But you are also entitled to one if you have demonstrated all three of the following:

1. Financial ability to satisfy the future obligations under a mortgage agreement securing a credit agreement for the purchase or improvement of immovable property, or any other long-term agreement as may be prescribed;
2. That there are no arrears on those re-arranged agreements; and
3. That all obligations under every other credit agreement included in the re-arrangement have been settled in full.

In plain terms: if everything except the home loan is settled, the home loan is up to date, and you can show you can carry it going forward, you can exit debt review without waiting out the remaining twenty years of the bond.

Regulation 27 is older and still describes the certificate as issued when the consumer has fully satisfied all obligations. The Act was amended after that regulation and the Act prevails. If a debt counsellor tells you that you must settle your bond first, point them at section 71(1)(b).

The two seven-day clocks

• Section 71(1): the debt counsellor must issue the clearance certificate within seven days after you satisfy the requirements.
• Section 71(4)(a): within seven days after issuing it, the debt counsellor must file a certified copy with the national register established under section 69 and with all registered credit bureaux.

The second one is the one that actually clears your record, and it is the one that gets forgotten. Getting the certificate in your hand is not the finish line - getting it filed with the bureaux is.

What gets expunged

Section 71(5) requires a credit bureau, and the national credit register, on receiving a copy of the clearance certificate, to expunge from its records:

• The fact that you were subject to the debt re-arrangement order or agreement;
• Any information relating to any default by you that precipitated the debt re-arrangement, or that was considered in making the order or agreement; and
• Any record that a particular credit agreement was subject to the re-arrangement.

That is broader than most people expect. It is not only the debt review flag - it is also the defaults that led to it.

Separately, section 71A requires a credit provider to tell all registered credit bureaux within seven days of you settling an obligation that carried an adverse listing or a judgment debt, and requires the bureau to remove that listing within seven days of receiving the information. If the credit provider fails to submit it, you may lodge a complaint with the NCR.

If your debt counsellor will not issue it

You have two distinct remedies, for two distinct failures.

If the debt counsellor decides not to issue, or fails to issue, the certificate, section 71(3) lets you apply to the National Consumer Tribunal to review that decision. If the Tribunal is satisfied you are entitled to it, it may order the debt counsellor to issue it.

If the certificate was issued but the debt counsellor fails to file the certified copy, section 71(4)(b) lets you file a certified copy with the National Credit Regulator yourself, and lodge a complaint against the debt counsellor.

Keep proof of your final payments to every credit provider. That is what you will need for either route.

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