Prescribed Debt: The Expiry Date on Old Debt

The phone rings about a store account from 2019. The caller has your details, an intimidating tone, and a settlement offer that expires today. What the caller may not have is a legally collectable debt - because in South Africa, most consumer debt carries an expiry date, and crossing it extinguishes the claim entirely. The rule is called prescription, and it may be the most valuable law you have never used.

Three Years, Three Conditions

Ordinary consumer debt - store accounts, personal loans, cards, cellphone contracts - prescribes three years after it fell due, provided the whole period passes with: no payment from you, no acknowledgement of the debt by you (written or spoken), and no summons or legal action from the creditor. All three conditions held? The debt is dead in law. Collection is not merely unlikely; pursuing prescribed debt is prohibited.

The Resurrection Trick

Prescription's weakness is that you can revive the debt yourself - and collectors engineer exactly that. A "goodwill" payment of R50 restarts the three-year clock. So does a recorded "yes, that was my account." Hence the scripts pushing token payments and simple confirmations on ancient debts. The defence: before acknowledging anything about an old debt, establish its age and legal status. Silence, then homework, then response.

The Slow Prescribers

Mortgage bonds, judgement debts and certain tax obligations prescribe on a thirty-year clock, not three. Which is one more reason to handle judgements properly - a debt converted to judgement escapes the three-year rule entirely.

Prescribed but Still Listed?

Entries tied to prescribed debt do not belong on your credit profile, yet they linger constantly. Identifying and striking them is standard work inside our clearance and removal services. Apply online - you may owe less than the phone calls claim.