Making Your Debt Review Work – The Final Step to a Successful Debt Review
Reviewed December 2023
Making Your Debt Review Work
If you have already taken the preceding 4 steps to make a success of your debt review then you will avoid a lot of hardship and problems. You will know who to trust and who to call if you are having problems with your debt review or get a call from someone about our debt review.
The final and perhaps most important step that will make or break your entire debt review is actually a simple one. Pay.
It is as simple as that. Once your Debt Counsellor lets you know what your new reduced monthly repayment amount toward your debt will be, pay and never miss a month. This payment will be done either via your PDA in one easy payment or for a few brave souls by themselves to all their creditors.
Breaking Old Habits
Sometimes, if consumers do not save toward annual costs or if they get confused by a collections call from a collections agent who doesn’t know about the debt review the consumer may skip a payment.
Some consumers think if they miss a payment there will be no consequences (they may have this bad habit from before when they missed payments on their credit accounts). Many consumers decide to spend money on gifts for kids in December rather than pay their debt repayments. Little do they realise the kid may get a gift but end up losing the roof over their heads. Others decide that they would like to head home to visit family in other parts of the country over the Easter weekend.
If they haven’t saved for this out of their monthly budget amount this means they probably don’t have enough to cover their monthly debt review repayment and they skip a payment.
There is no room for reduced payments or missed payments while under debt review. It is a court arranged, ‘last chance’ to pay debt responsibly. If a consumer misses a payment, their Debt Counsellor may be the first to notify them that they are going to be removed from their services and that creditors will have the right to take new legal action against them. If not their Debt Counsellor then their creditors have the right to take legal action and the Debt Counsellor will not be able to (or want to) protect them from that.
Never Miss A Payment
It is important to know that credit providers cooperate with the process and adjust things while you are under debt review (adjusting the monthly payment amount required and often reducing the interest figures by agreement) but should you drop out of debt review (for any reason) they will enforce the original contract.
The scary part is that according to the original contract you are meant to have paid the full monthly repayment amount and not the reduced one. This means that you will suddenly be behind on payments by a huge amount.
This will make things incredibly difficult for you and will normally mean that should you miss a debt review payment they will take the account out of their debt review department and hand it over to collections who will demand huge arrears from you or hand you over to lawyers.
The lawyers will be more than happy to get a summons against you and try to get a court order. Armed with that they will either go after your salary or even try to take your goods or reposess vehicles or auction of houses. They will not care about any of the debt review payments you made during the time you were under debt review and how good you were. They will focus on the missing amount according to the original contract.
Step 5
Never, ever, ever, ever miss a payment…ever!
So, follow these 5 Steps to a successful debt review:
1. Know your Debt Counsellor
2. Know your Attorneys
3. Know your PDA
4. Stick to your budget
5. Never miss a payment
‘It is your debt and not the Debt Counsellors’
These are obviously not the only factors that impact on a debt review (after all there are many moving parts and participants in a debt review) but they are positive steps which a consumer can take to help make a success of the process.
If you are under debt review then get involved, get to know who you are dealing with and keep a tack on what is happening.
You should really educate yourself about the debt review process (feel free to sign up for a monthly reminder when the new Debtfree Magazine is out – this will help you know about weird things credit providers or Debt Counsellors may be doing. Subscribe for Free here: SEND IT TO ME)
Get help but don’t hand over the reins entirely to strangers. After all, it is your debt and not the Debt Counsellor’s.
Debt Review can help you and you can help Make a Success of Your Debt Review!