Relieving Consumer Overindebtedness in South Africa: Policy Reviews and Recommendations

What is it about?

This article is about finding humane legal means to help people reduce the burden of debt or to escape crippling unmanageable personal debt.

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Why is it important?

When people find themselves with more debt than they can manage to pay, their social functioning will be in jeopardy, they will encounter health problems, have no access to future borrowing and above all, face harassment and legal problems from their lenders. Besides, many people fall in debt not because they were spending carelessly, unforeseen problems like sickness, divorce, addiction cause most debt. For that matter the state has a duty to protect people in this way by introducing laws that help people to manage or get out of debt in a more humane way as opposed to repossessing their properties, air-dropping them to court or sending debt collectors to break the ankles. There is no winner in this. the lender will not get paid because the debtor is not able to. the courts cannot help either side because getting the defaulter to prison does not get the lender paid and if they decide on repossession, they should remember that most borrowers in this country possess little to no property of value.

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