Abstract:
The National Credit Act (“NCA” or “Act”) has been hailed for its robust protective
measures that seek to protect consumers entering into credit agreements with credit
providers. The manner in which the Act protects consumers is multifaceted, however,
the scope of this study is limited to the provisions of section 127. Pertinent is the
extraordinary right of a credit consumer to cancel credit agreements specified in the
Act and to rid himself of the goods forming the subject of the particular agreement
through the surrender of such goods. Thus, the section 127 right permits the
termination of the credit agreement in advance, before the date agreed on in the
agreement for its termination and entails several benefits for the consumer. The
provisions of section 127, which afford substantive and procedural protection to credit
consumers, curtail the right of credit providers under the common law to seek recourse
on the basis of repudiation of the contract by the consumer.
Section 127, and in particular its procedural protection measures such as the question
how notices in terms of the section must be brought to the consumer’s attention, came
up for judicial scrutiny on several occasions. The dissertation, with the focus on the
provisions of section 127 and the protection it affords to consumers, inter alia in
respect of the alleviation of over-indebtedness and the prevention of contractual
default, identified lacunae in the National Credit Act
