Suppose on a fine Saturday afternoon you receive a call from a creditor, with regards to repayment of a loan you were beginning to forget about. Frustrating isn’t it, especially when you thought they too had forgotten about you or taken you off their debtors’ books? What if you learn that there is a way actually, whereby a forgetful creditor will have no choice but to forget about you and the debt?

Prescription can be defined as the extinction of obligations due to lapse of time, alternatively the extinguishing of a claim if within the prescriptive period the claimant does not bring the claim. It is regulated mainly by the Prescription Act 68 of 1969, though other pieces of legislation may make provisions that deal with prescription, for example the Institution of Legal Proceedings Against Certain Organs of State Act 40 of 2002. That Act deserves particular care. Where the debtor is an organ of state, section 3 requires the creditor to serve a written notice of the intended proceedings within six months from the date the debt became due, and proceedings may not be instituted until thirty days after that notice has been served. A creditor who misses the six-month notice period may apply for condonation under section 3(4), which a court may grant only where the debt has not already prescribed, good cause is shown for the failure, and the organ of state was not unreasonably prejudiced. A claim can therefore be lost long before the three-year prescription period has run out. The extinction of obligations with regards to a debt means one no longer has to pay that debt anymore. Depending on the kind of debt, Section 11 of the Act provides four different prescription periods, and it is a costly mistake to assume that the familiar three-year period is the one that applies:

  • Thirty years for any debt secured by a mortgage bond, any judgment debt, any debt in respect of taxation imposed or levied under any law, and any debt owed to the State for a share of profits, royalties or similar consideration for the right to mine minerals or other substances.
  • Fifteen years for any debt owed to the State arising out of an advance or loan of money, or a sale or lease of land by the State to the debtor, unless a longer period applies.
  • Six years for a debt arising from a bill of exchange or other negotiable instrument, or from a notarial contract, unless a longer period applies.
  • Three years for any other debt, save where an Act of Parliament provides otherwise.

The practical consequence is that a debtor who assumes an old mortgage bond or an unpaid tax assessment has prescribed after three years is wrong by twenty-seven years, and a debt arising from a notarial contract sits in the six-year band rather than the three-year one. In Boundary Financing Ltd v Protea Property Holdings (Pty) Ltd 2009 (3) SA 447 (SCA) it was held that the rectification of a contract by an aggrieved party cannot prescribe, and can be brought many years after the conclusion of the contract. For a broader overview of how prescription affects debt recovery, see our article on prescription and debt.

For purposes of certainty, prescription begins to run on the day and date the debt becomes due and enforceable and, the creditor must have knowledge of the existence of the debt or the creditor ought to have known of the debt had he/she/it exercised due diligence and reasonable care (Section 12 (3). It follows then, that prescription does not run when the debtor deliberately prevents the creditor from knowing about the debt. The running of the period is consecutive, and not cumulative.

Further, prescription is delayed by a year should any of the circumstances hereunder result in the creditor having less than a year, from date when the circumstance ceases, until the normal date of prescription to claim;

  1. The creditor is a minor, insane, or under curatorship;
  2. The debtor is outside the country (see example below)
  3. The creditor and the debtor are married to each other;
  4. The creditor and the debtor are partners and the debt arose from a partnership agreement;
  5. The creditor is a juristic person and the debtor is a member of its governing body;
  6. The debt is the object of a dispute in an arbitration; or
  7. The debt is the object of a claim filed against the estate of a deceased debtor, against an insolvent estate, or against a company in liquidation; or
  8. The creditor or the debtor has died and an executor of the estate in question has not yet been appointed.

Example:

B borrows money from A on 1 June 2020, and B undertakes to return the money on 30 June 2020. B however fails to return the money and goes to Zambia on 16 December 2020 only to return on 2 February 2023. When does the debt prescribe in this case?

The debt became due and enforceable on 30 June 2020 which is the day B undertook to pay it back. Normal prescription date will be three years from 30 June 2020, which is 29 June 2023. Due to B’s travel to Zambia, A could not institute recovery action for the debt. When B returns on 2 February 2023, it is only 5 months before the normal prescription date; therefore a delay of 1 year is applicable from date when B returned from Zambia. This means A will have 1 year from 2 February 2023 to claim. The debt will therefore prescribe on 1 February 2024.

If B returns on 23 July 2021, which is about 23 months before the normal date of prescription on 29 June 2023, there won’t be a delay and the normal prescription date will apply.

One category of claim stands outside this framework altogether. Section 12(4) of the Act, as substituted by the Prescription in Civil and Criminal Matters (Sexual Offences) Amendment Act 15 of 2020 with effect from 23 December 2020, provides that prescription does not begin to run in respect of a civil claim arising from a sexual offence, whether at common law or under statute, for as long as the creditor is unable to institute proceedings because of mental or intellectual disability, disorder or incapacity, or because of any other factor the court deems appropriate. The reform was made to accommodate survivors who are not in a position to litigate within the ordinary three-year window. It has no bearing on commercial debt, and the periods set out above are unaffected by it.

In conclusion, interruption of the running of prescription happens when the debtor acknowledges liability, or when the creditor serves on the debtor, process to claim payment of the debt. If a creditor does take formal steps against you, it is important to understand how a letter of demand works and what it means for the prescription period.

As straight forward as these principles sound, as exciting as the extinction of prescribed huge amounts of debt sounds, dealing with aspects of prescription without legal assistance is risky usually because the stakes are high. One may actually acknowledge debt without knowing it, thereby interrupting prescription. It is also worth noting that unpaid debts — whether prescribed or not — can affect your credit record; read more about how blacklisting works in South Africa. We strongly recommend legal assistance as the right advice can make a simple ‘calendar date untie you from that kapenta debt.’

Updated 25 August 2026 — Set out all four prescription periods under section 11 of the Prescription Act 68 of 1969, including the fifteen-year period for certain debts owed to the State and the fact that the thirty-year period covers debts secured by a mortgage bond and tax debts, not only judgment debts. Added the section 3 requirement of the Institution of Legal Proceedings Against Certain Organs of State Act 40 of 2002 that a creditor serve written notice on an organ of state within six months. Corrected the citation of the Prescription in Civil and Criminal Matters (Sexual Offences) Amendment Act 15 of 2020 and set out what section 12(4) actually provides. Corrected and completed the list of circumstances that delay the completion of prescription under section 13.