In short
In South Africa an ordinary debt, including an unsecured loan, prescribes three years after it becomes due. A debt secured by a registered mortgage bond prescribes after thirty years, and so does a judgment debt. A notarial contract or bill of exchange gives six years. The clock starts when the debt is due, not when you begin chasing it. It can be interrupted: an acknowledgement by the borrower starts the period again, and serving summons interrupts it. Once a debt has prescribed a court will not enforce it, though a borrower who pays anyway cannot reclaim the money.
Every debt has a shelf life. Leave it long enough without doing the right things and it stops being enforceable — the borrower still owes you in a moral sense, but a court will not help you collect. That is prescription, and for an ordinary loan the clock runs for three years.
The number that surprises most lenders is the other one. Take the same loan and secure it with a registered mortgage bond, and the period becomes thirty years. Same borrower, same money, ten times the runway.
01 — The periodsHow long you actually have
The Prescription Act sets four periods. Only three of them matter to a private lender, and the last one is the default that catches everything not named above it.
| What kind of debt | How long | What that covers in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Secured by a registered mortgage bond | 30 years | A bond registered over property at the Deeds Office. Not one you agreed to and never registered. |
| A judgment debt | 30 years | Once you have sued and won, the judgment itself gets thirty years. Getting judgment resets your problem entirely. |
| A notarial contract or a bill of exchange | 6 years | Includes a notarial bond over movables, executed before a notary and registered. |
| Everything else | 3 years | An ordinary written loan agreement. An unsecured loan. A loan secured only by a cession or a suretyship. This is where most private lending sits. |
02 — The clockWhen the three years start running
Prescription starts as soon as the debt is due. Not when you get around to chasing it, not when you give up being patient, not when you instruct an attorney.
This catches lenders who are being reasonable. You lend to someone you know, they miss a payment, you give them room. Two years of room, because they keep saying they are close to sorting it out. You have now used two of your three years being decent about it.
Two things delay the start
- The borrower hid the debt from you. If the debtor wilfully prevents you from learning the debt exists, the clock does not start until you find out.
- You could not have known who owed you or why. For a debt that does not come from a contract, the clock waits until you know the debtor's identity and the facts. But you are treated as knowing whatever reasonable care would have told you — so this is not a refuge for a lender who simply did not look.
Neither of these helps in the ordinary case. A written loan with a due date is due on that date, and the clock starts then.
03 — InterruptingHow to stop the clock
Three years is a starting point, not a countdown you are powerless against. Prescription can be interrupted, and the two ordinary ways are within a lender's control.
| What interrupts it | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| The borrower acknowledges the debt | An acknowledgement — in writing, ideally — restarts the period. A payment, a signed admission, an email agreeing the amount is owed. This is why a lender who is being patient should be getting something in writing each time they grant room. |
| You serve process | Issuing and serving summons interrupts prescription. Getting judgment then converts the debt into a judgment debt with thirty years of its own. |
There are also circumstances that delay completion rather than interrupt the running — where the creditor is a minor, where the parties are married to each other, where the debtor is outside the country, and others. They are narrow and none of them should be planned around.
04 — What to do about itWhat this changes about how you lend
Three consequences follow, and none of them require legal advice to act on.
- Know the date. Every loan has a date on which the last of your three years expires. If you do not know it, you are managing a deadline you cannot see.
- Write down every indulgence. Each time you grant room, get the borrower to acknowledge the debt in writing. You are being kind and resetting your clock at the same time.
- Register what you take. An unregistered bond is not a bond. A notarial bond that was never registered buys you nothing. The registration is what converts a three-year debt into a six- or thirty-year one.
05 — The boundaryWhat this page does not decide
Whether your debt has prescribed depends on facts this page cannot know. When did it fall due? What did the agreement say? Did the borrower do anything that counts as an acknowledgement? Did any of the delaying circumstances apply?
Prescription is also raised as a defence rather than applied automatically, and there is case law on what counts as an acknowledgement that a summary cannot capture. If a debt of yours is near its date, that is a question for an attorney this week rather than next year.