The single most important way of improving your credit record is to pay your accounts
on time. This is because the most important information, other than negative listings,
is the fact that you are (hopefully) now paying your accounts on time. Each month
your payments get recorded in the Payment Profile section of your credit record
and provided you have been paying your accounts on time for at least six months,
or preferably a year, you stand a far better chance of being granted credit.
If you have 'forgotten' to pay some old accounts that are less than three years
old you should pay them and have the accounts reflect as paid, unless they no longer
appear on your credit record.
Be careful, offering to settle an account is an admission of liability and it will
result in your losing the legal defence of prescription - which provides that you
do not have to pay an account which has remained unpaid for more than three years
(unless legal action was taken or you admitted liability during that three year
period). Admitting liability means you will have to pay all the collection, legal
costs and interest as well, so it pays to be careful and not discard this defence
when making payment. For more information on how to best settle an old account,
contact Logan Attorneys on info@logan.co.za
It is also no use paying an old account in the naive hope that the negative listing
will be automatically removed. Unfortunately the law does not force creditors to
remove these negative listings once the account has been paid. It is important that
you obtain written confirmation from the creditor, before you pay the account, that
they will remove the Adverse Information and not simply amend it. If they will not
remove it make sure they, at least, agree to amend the listing to reflect the account
was paid.