A Step-by-Step Guide to
Debt Counselling

Learn about the detailed process of debt counselling, from initial assessment to final clearance, and how Master Your Money helps you achieve financial freedom.

The following documents are required:

Identity Document
Payslip (latest 3 months)
Bank Statements (latest 3 months)
Budget List

Upon receipt of the above documents/information, your credit report will be drawn to verify your account details (balances and instalments) to do a preliminary assessment.

The assessment is done to firstly determine whether you are over-indebted and secondly allow Master Your Money to give you an indication of what your debt currently looks like and work out an example of what your debt repayments might look like under Debt Counselling.

Once the application for Debt Counselling is submitted, you will be flagged on the credit bureaus as being under Debt Counselling to prevent any further credit being granted up until such time that your debt included in debt counselling is settled.

When doing an assessment, DCRS (Debt Counselling Rules System) will be applied.

In short, DCRS consist of certain concessions being made on the accounts by the Credit Providers.

Repayment terms will be extended to a maximum of 60 months (5 years).
Instalments and interest rates will be reduced to the bare minimum, allowing it to solve within the preferred period.
Monthly service fees charged on the accounts might be waived by the Credit Providers.
In essence, all fees, charges, and interest rates will be reduced as low as possible to accommodate your repayment best.

The assessment done by the time of your application for Debt Counselling will be an estimation based on the information declared by you or as reflected on your credit report, however, this is by no means the final instalment as the correct information must be obtained from the credit providers.

Master Your Money will request the correct information from the credit providers and make it available to you so that you can see the information that the credit providers declared.

Application documents to be completed by Consumer.
Master Your Money will send a notification to the Credit Providers (Form 17.1) advising them that you have approached us for assistance and that they should provide our office with all the details of the accounts.
The Credit Providers will issue a COB (Certificate of Balance) within 5-10 business days declaring all the contractual information about your accounts (bank details, account number, balance, interest rate, instalment).
Once the COB’s are received from all the Credit Providers, we will be in a position to do a repayment proposal wherein the adjustments are made for reduced instalments, reduced interest rates and new payment terms. This information will be sent to you for approval before the proposed details are sent to the Credit Providers.
Once you consent to the proposed adjustments, we will send a proposal to all the Credit Providers, declaring your income, monthly commitments, debt obligations and the proposed adjustments for their consideration.
Within 5-10 business days, the Credit Providers will assess the proposal made to them and forward us their acceptance or alternative response.
Once all Credit Providers accepted the proposal, we can approach court on your behalf to legally implement the accepted agreements reached with the Credit Providers within Debt Counselling.
A monthly debit order will be loaded on your bank account. You will have one single debit order for all your accounts; the funds will go to our trust account and all the payments will be made to the Credit Providers in terms of the agreements reached with them. You will have a profile loaded on our system which will allow the distribution to be done automatically every month.
You will receive a monthly statement by email to reflect the funds received by you, distributed to the credit providers, as well as the account balances for you to monitor the progress on your accounts.
Once all your debt is paid up, we can proceed to issue a Clerance Certificate with paid up letters – indicating that you have rehabilitated from the Debt Counselling process and the necessary updates will be sent to the Credit Providers and Credit Bureaus to remove the debt counselling listing (flag) from your credit records.

The following fees may be charged and will be included in and in line with your monthly Debt Counselling instalment:

Application fee – R50.00 (once off)
Administration fee – R300.00 (once off)
Restructuring fee – equal to your first Debt Counselling instalment, not exceeding R8,000.00 for a single applicant or R9,000.00 for a joint application (once off)
Legal fee – R1,380.00 (once off) – inclusive of filing fees
Aftercare fee – 5.00% of your Debt Counselling instalment, up to a maximum of R450.00 per month.
PDA (payment distribution agency) fee – R5.00 for each payment between R100.00 and R200.00 distributed in respect of each credit agreement; R10.00 for each payment between R201.00 and R500.00; and R15.00 for each payment exceeding R500.00 distributed in respect of each credit agreement included in the debt re-arrangement plan.

All the fees listed above are included in your quoted Debt Counselling instalment and are per the guidelines of the National Credit Regulator.