#NoABSA!

<p>I received a call in July this year from an attorney at Hammond Pole informing me that she has been tasked to issue me with a summons as instructed by ABSA Bank. My first question to her was how is it that a summons can be issued when there has been no communication between myself and Absa regarding the matter of my having stopped paying my bond account in December 2015? She answered that ABSA feel that they have grounds to issue a summons without any prior communication.</p> <p>I called the Collections (Pre-legal) department to find out if there are procedures in place that has to be followed once an account goes unpaid. The person I spoke to confirmed that usually an account will show up on their system when it goes unpaid and they will contact the client to see if the matter can be resolved. I asked her to look into my account to see if there has been any attempts at contacting me. She confirmed that since January 2016 there had been no red flags and no communications logged. I asked her to please send me a document confirming or proofing this fact but was informed that only legal has access to this information and she can not provide me with a document as requested. I called back a few days later, also speaking to a supervisor only to receive the same answer. No attempt at communication was made and no proof can be provided.</p> <p> I discussed this with Samantha in the Legal Dept as well as the fact that I intentionally stopped paying the account out of frustration for not getting my queries of two years dealt with satisfactorily and just shrugged their shoulders saying that why the account went unpaid is really of no interest to them and that there has been sufficient pre-legal communication.</p> <p>Taking this matter up with the attorney she informed me that there has been one call made to me by a field agent in May2016. I recalled that the conversation went like this ‘Thank you for calling! I have been waiting for a long time for ABSA to contact me. I have some outstanding queries that I need to be looked into and will be happy to resume paying my account as soon as someone has assisted me with resolving these’ The agent said that she will revert the matter back to ABSA and ask them to contact me regarding my queries. According to the attorney my response was recorded as saying I refused to pay my account until my queries are dealt with. I never received that call from ABSA but instead received a summons stating that all possible avenues had been followed to make contact with me and that Absa has no other remedy available to them to recover the monies owing.</p> <p>I discussed this matter with the attorney as there had been no phone calls, no email, no letter to my mail box from ABSA that allowed me to respond in a favourable manner and resolve the issue. She pointed out that the Section 129 letters that were sent from Hammond Pole gave me the opportunity to respond (Annexure I of Summons), only both the letters they sent were sent to the wrong address despite my correct address being on the system. I never received either of these letters and so had no opportunity before the summons was issued to set matters straight.</p> <p>When I pointed this out to the attorney she sent me another letter which I did receive on the 23 August, 3 weeks after the summons was issued.</p> <p>I stated to the Attorney that I will not cover the legal costs for a process that was both unnecessary and ungrounded. ABSA went ahead with the summons nevertheless and so bul**** me into a legal process that I can not afford.</p> <p>After stating that I will most definitely oppose the matter and issuing a summary judgement prepared by myself, ABSA app**** for a summary judgement, stating that I have no case and am just stalling the process. I do not have the time or expertise to prepare an Affidavit in order to defend my case. On doing the rounds of organisations who do offer legal assistance I found that I did not qualify for assistance as I am not poor enough.</p> <p>I totally understand that my non-paying of my house was not a great strategy to get attention from someone that may be able to answer my questions. Losing my house over this however I think will be quite unacceptable in anyone’s books. I am able to pay my bond, have resumed payments and have already paid the full amount of R1,450 000 that I initially borrowed over the past 10 years. Despite paying a R750 000 lump sum into the account in 2007 I have not reduced the remaining capital amount of R800 000 by a single cent. ABSA has already made R800 000 in profit from interest from this account over 10 years and now they want to just cancel the deal because of miscommunication! To add insult to injury, if ABSA wins the case they will not allow me to sell the housein order to cover the costs in full but will put it on auction in which case I will be left with some R100 000’s not covered by the sale as well as the legal costs to cover.</p> <p>Further to this, this is my only home and the only option for accommodation for myself and my two boys (8 & 16yrs). If we lose this house we will effectively be on the street as I also work from home and will not only lose my only option for housing but also my workspace and the ability to generate an income. From the summons I received I understand that it will be unconstitutional to infringe on our access to adequate housing.</p> <p>Further to this, when I called the Collections Dept again in September to better understand what may have gone wrong on their side, the agent informed me that my profile was now populated with several calls made (all unanswered, no messages left) and attempts to make contact from field agents (again all missed calls, again no messages). I find this highly questionable that the system was now suddenly populated, that all calls were missed despite my phone always being on, that no messages were left, to which I would have responded as I was looking forward to ABSA contacting me. Despite email being accepted as the most reliable means for communication not a single email was sent, according to the pre-legal system.</p> <p>In summary, I feel that I had no opportunity to engage with ABSA on this matter, no opportunity to resolve the issue before they embarked on the legal route, I have paid over R1,450 000 to ABSA, honouring my agreement for 10 years, prioritising my bond payments over all other expenses which often went unpaid, only to now be at risk of not only losing my investment but also my family home because of miscommunication and unwillingness on their behalf to engage with the simple queries I had.</p>