On the 9th of March 2020, the sub-rule 41A of the Rules of the SA Courts came into effect which basically requires of litigants in any action need to complete and sign their acceptance of or rejection of Mediation before the action can proceed in court.
Apart from the banks ( or anyone claiming debt from anyone) has to send the debtor a notice in terms of S129a of the NCA this is now a new requirement before litigation can start.
This is going to be far-reaching in the bank's( and other creditor's ) actions in courts. The S129 notice was basically the last action from the creditor telling the client that he is in arrears and that he can see a debt counselor which could be a way out of litigation. The whole scene changed recently where this requirement is now going to be a major obstacle in any creditor's legal actions. How this is actually going to work is still not quite clear and a lot of attorneys have written about this on their websites. But with due respect to the legal fraternity, I think they do not know how this is going to be applied. There needs to be an INDEPENDENT Mediator involved. It cannot be a bank employee or a bank's attorney - this will amount to serious bias. So who is going to do this and who is going to appoint the mediator and who is going to pay him/her?
