Letter · Financial Services Regulation
Hardship notice response letters under the National Credit Code (information request, decision and notice of change)
Three linked letters for a credit provider responding to a debtor’s hardship notice: a request for information within 21 days, a decision letter that either records the agreed change or gives reasons and AFCA details, and the s 73 notice of change, with a timing diary.
- Kind
- Letter. A letter or email you adapt and send.
- Where it applies
- Australia
- AI use
- Yellow AI can help in set ways. A lawyer checks specific points before use.
- Law stated as at
- 18 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked on 18 October 2026 against the 3 authorities it cites, for Australia.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use when a debtor under a credit contract regulated by the National Credit Code tells the credit provider, orally or in writing, that they are or will be unable to meet their obligations. Not for business loans outside the Code.
Used for these tasks
Each task page says how far AI may help with the task and what the lawyer must review.
How AI may be used
AI may fill the letters from the hardship file and calculate the deadlines, but a person in the hardship team decides whether to agree a change, and checks the reasons and the debtor’s circumstances before any letter is sent.
AI may
- Record the date the hardship notice was received and calculate each deadline in the s 72(5) table
- Fill the account, debtor and proposed change details into the approved letters from the hardship file
- Draft a plain-language summary of the proposed change for the decision maker to approve
AI must not
- Must not decide whether to agree to a change or what change to offer
- Must not write reasons for refusing that the decision maker has not given, or request information that is not relevant to the s 72(2) questions
- Must not send any letter to a debtor who may be affected by family violence without the case being checked by a person for safe contact details
The lawyer checks
- The hardship notice date is correct, including oral notices, and each letter is sent within the s 72(5) period
- A refusal states the reasons and the AFCA scheme’s name, contact details and the debtor’s rights under it (s 72(4)(b))
- Any agreed change of more than 90 days is recorded in a decision notice and a s 73 notice to the debtor and any guarantor within 30 days
- No enforcement step is taken while the hardship process requires the credit provider to wait (see s 89A, referred to in the note to s 72(1))
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Read the full text
The full text is for signed-in accounts. It is free. When you sign in you can:
- read the whole precedent, with its drafting notes beside it;
- copy it, or download it as a Word file or Markdown;
- add it to your firm’s knowledge base, so colleagues can find it;
- let the AI tools you connect read it from that knowledge base.
The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
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