How Financial Rehabilitation After Sequestration Works
Although voluntary sequestration helps you to get rid of up to 80% of your debt with the remainder payable in cash or down payment, according to an agreement over a period of 18-24 months, whilst under sequestration, your ability to enter into credit contracts is limited.
As such, you will want to apply for financial rehabilitation after sequestration as soon as possible. Once rehabilitated, you will no longer have the status of insolvent or sequestrated. However, even after financial rehabilitation, you will still need to submit the copy of the rehabilitation order to the credit bureaux to have the sequestration status removed and replaced with rehabilitated.
What Financial Rehabilitation Means
Once rehabilitated, you can become a director of a company and can hold positions from which you would be excluded while under sequestration. You will be able to enter into a credit agreement without the written permission of a curator. You will once again be in charge of your estate, and thus regain financial control.
All debts incurred up until the sequestration date will be discharged, and no creditors from before the sequestration can bring any claims against you. All such debts are thus considered paid. You are thus debt free, provided you have not entered into debt agreements after the sequestration. If this is the case, you will need to pay off all the debts before you can get financial rehabilitation.
How Long Does It Take?
The process takes around two to three months, depending upon factors such as when you signed the affidavit. You don’t have to appear in court. Our attorneys will submit the signed affidavit to court. The court will issue the provisional rehabilitation order and set the matter aside for 30 days. The creditors will get a chance to object during this period. Upon the return date to court, should there be no objections, the court will issue the rehabilitation order and, provided all conditions have been met, you will be financially rehabilitated.
ITC
Our attorneys will submit copies of the rehabilitation order to the credit bureaux to have the status of sequestrated removed and replaced with rehabilitated. This will stay on ITC for a period of five years.
Timetable
If you don’t apply for financial rehabilitation, a period of ten years must lapse for the status of sequestrated to be automatically removed from your credit record. However, the status of rehabilitated will remain on your credit record for a period of five years.
The normal timeframe for an application for financial rehabilitation is four years after the date of sequestration, provided you have not been convicted of a fraudulent act related to your insolvency, and provided it has been the first sequestration of your estate. Certain other requirements must also be met. If you have been convicted of a fraudulent act in relation to your insolvent estate, you will only be able to apply for financial rehabilitation after a period of five years has lapsed from date of the conviction. Note that you can apply earlier if certain conditions are met.
Best speak to our experienced insolvency lawyers to help you with the financial rehabilitation process, and to ensure the complete removal of your blacklisted status.