Work of debt collectors

Vote Muza

SEVERAL readers have written to me asking serious questions about the work of debt collectors, particularly wh-ether they are acting legally or not.

I am unaware of any law that allows debt collection firms to go about issuing letters of demand and threatening debtors with all sorts of actions.
Debt collection work is for legal practitioners alone and whoever attempts or purports to hold himself/herself out as a debt collector will be seriously breaching the law.
In addition, such a person will also be snatching away legal work that should otherwise legitimately be that of legal practitioners.
Anyone who thinks otherwise should take a look at the Legal Practitioners Act (Chapter 27:07) under Section 9 to observe that only a legal practitioner with a valid practicing certificate can issue out letters of demand threatening legal action.
Any other person who holds him-self/herself out as a legal practitioner or merely carries on debt collection work will obviously be committing a crime that is punishable by imprisonment.
The several debt collection firms that have sprouted all over the country and are busy harassing members of the public with their sometimes rude and menacing letters of demand are doing so illegally.
Various members of the Law Society of Zimbabwe are fully aware of these businesses that are operating outside the law, but have simply elected to turn a blind eye on them for fear of being perceived as jealousy and fearful of competition.
Recent reports appeared in the media suggesting that debt collectors have formed an association to represent their interests. As long as that association is a voluntary one, and not existing in terms of a national statute, then it remains a group constituted by illegal members or criminal elements.
While still lobbying for formal recognition by government they must stop all their operations because members of the public are clearly vulnerable.
Their vulnerability comes in many ways, but I shall mention only a few.
First, debt collectors do not operate any trust accounts to hold collection proceeds and they are accountable to no one but themselves. No one scrutinises their work compared to lawyers whose work is regularly audited under the supervision of their parent organisations.
Several members of the public have had their money stolen after being recovered from debtors without any means to recover them. With lawyers and estate agents, compensation funds exist to enable victims of fraud and embezzlement recover their loss and sound disciplinary mechanisms exist to punish any rotten apples among them.
Secondly, debt collectors have little or no understanding of what the law is all about and often members of the public pay for a service that rarely bring fruitful results. How many times have victims of incompetent or wayward debt collectors approached lawyers for redress?
The most a debt collector will do is issue a letter of demand, and if the debtor ignores it that will be the end of the matter. But there are some who are daring and desperate and they attempt to involve themselves in the technical work of preparing summons and other court documents simply to earn a fee.
Others may have an idea about procedural law, but all are clueless about substantive law.
In one case that I encountered, a debt collector issued summons for a claim based in delict but failed to state in the summons the element of negligence, which is central in an aqulian action under the Roman and Roman Dutch law.
A simple technical defence against the summons known as an exception rendered the legal suit doomed, and it never lasted the distance.
Admittedly the factor of legal costs has made many people evade lawyers in preference of debt collectors, but such a move can come at a heavy cost not just in terms of money, but also after losing the case through the incompetence of the non expert.

- Vote Muza is a partner with Muza and Nyapadi Legal Practitioners. He can be contacted on email; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or Website: muzanadnyapadi.com

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