Life After Debt Review: Rebuilding Your Credit Record

First, get the paperwork actually done

The debt review does not end when you make the last payment. It ends when the clearance certificate is issued and filed. Section 71(1) requires the debt counsellor to issue it within seven days of you satisfying the requirements, and section 71(4)(a) requires certified copies to be filed with the national register and all registered credit bureaux within seven days of issue.

Both steps matter. A certificate sitting in your inbox that was never filed with the bureaux leaves the record in place. Follow up on the filing specifically, not just on the certificate.

What the bureaux must remove

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

• 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 it; and
• Any record that a particular credit agreement was subject to the re-arrangement.

That second item is broader than people expect. The defaults that led you into debt review come off too, not just the debt review flag itself.

Section 71A adds a separate duty: where you settle an obligation that carried an adverse listing or a judgment debt, the credit provider must inform all registered credit bureaux within seven days, and the bureau must remove the listing within seven days of receiving that information. If a credit provider fails to submit it, you can lodge a complaint with the NCR.

Verify it rather than assuming it

Once the certificate has been filed, pull your credit reports from the credit bureaux and check that the debt review record and the associated defaults have actually gone. Do not assume the process completed correctly.

If something has not been removed, you have concrete remedies: a complaint to the NCR, and - where the failure is the debt counsellor not issuing or not filing - the section 71(3) route to the National Consumer Tribunal or the section 71(4)(b) route of filing the certificate with the NCR yourself.

About your credit score, honestly

We are not going to tell you how many points your score will move, in either direction, at any stage of this process. South African credit bureaux do not publish their scoring models, the bureaux score differently from one another, and anyone quoting you a number of points is making it up.

What is documented is the record. Section 71(5) says what must be expunged. Your score is calculated by each bureau from whatever remains on the record, along with your subsequent behaviour. A cleaner record is a better starting point - that is as specific as anyone can honestly be.

What also matters, and is often overlooked, is that credit providers make their own lending decisions on their own criteria. A clean bureau record is not the same thing as an approval.

Rebuilding, realistically

• Keep the budget. You spent years living on a restructured instalment. The single most useful thing you can carry out of debt review is knowing exactly what your household actually costs. Our budget planner keeps the same line items: /tools/debt-review/budget-planner
• Build a cash buffer before you build credit. The thing that puts people back into over-indebtedness is an unabsorbable shock, not a bad interest rate.
• Check your credit reports regularly and dispute what is wrong. You are entitled to see what is recorded about you.
• Take on new credit slowly and deliberately, and only where you have run the affordability yourself. Section 79 exists because credit taken without regard to affordability is how the cycle starts.
• Remember that the section 88(1) restriction has lifted, which means the discipline is now yours rather than the Act's.

If you are struggling again

Going back into debt review is possible - the Act does not limit you to one application. But a second review is a signal that something structural did not change, and the honest thing to look at is income and expenses rather than the debt itself.

The warning signs are the same ones as the first time: using credit for living expenses, borrowing to service borrowing, choosing which accounts to pay. Our guide on the warning signs walks them: /tools/debt-review/warning-signs-you-need-debt-review

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