My husband passed away and I cannot afford to pay the debt. What can I do?

The long answer

I am not sure what you mean when you say the will was 'renounced'. Could it be that the bank says the will is invalid because of technical problems like not having the required witness signatures? If the will is rejected as invalid, it means that your husband would be said to have died without a will, and therefore the Intestate Succession Act would apply. This means that the surviving spouse is first in line to inherit, so it would amount to much the same thing as being married in community of property.

You say that he left no estate whatsoever. Does this mean that you did not own a house together or that you were not paying off a bond on the house, but were perhaps renting?

When one of the spouses dies in a community of property marriage, the joint estate is dissolved. This process involves the freezing of the deceased person’s bank account and the executor of the estate opening a new account to settle all the debts that are equally shared between the spouses. These include contractual debt, mortgage bonds, loans and credit cards.

There are two kinds of debt: secured debt and unsecured debt. BusinessTech explains this as follows: 

“Secured debts are those that are guaranteed against specific assets. These are tangible items taken as security for loan repayments so that if payments cease, the bank can sell or use certain property to recover the amount owed,” said Sebastien Alexanderson.

“Unsecured debts are the opposite of this. There is nothing attached to the debt, and if payments were to stop, the bank will not have anything to repossess. In these instances, to pay off debt, the bank must go to court and get an order charging for the sale of valuables to recover the funds.”

Transunion.co.za says: “A loan is unsecured if it is not backed by any underlying assets. Examples of unsecured debt include credit cards, medical bills, utility bills, and other instances in which credit was given without any collateral requirement. Basically, they're accepting your promise to pay them back in the future. That's why unsecured loans are usually based on your credit history and payment behaviour amongst other factors applied by the lender.”

So, if you were still paying off a mortgage bond to the bank, then the house would be collateral for the secured debt and the bank could take steps to repossess it if you were unable to keep up payments. Credit cards, though, are unsecured debt.

So perhaps the best thing to do is to go to the bank and find out the reason that your joint will was ‘renounced’ or rejected, and explain your position to them: that you are a SASSA pensioner without assets, and though you accept that you are liable for your late husband’s credit card debt, you are not in any position to pay it off. It may be that they will write off the debt or perhaps make an agreement whereby you pay a minimal amount. 

If you don’t go and see the bank, they may well try and sue you for the credit card debt, so it would be wise to see them straight away.

You could also ask the Black Sash, which is an organisation that gives free paralegal advice, to assist you.

These are their contact details:

Email: help@blacksash.org.za

Helpline: 072 66 33 73

Wishing you the best,
Athalie