Coronavirus: Your outstanding bank loan could lead to the travel ban
If you have an outstanding loan or credit card and due to Covid-19 situation, you have been jobless or underpaid are you eligible for repatriation to your home country?
Based on the provisions of law, you may have signed a Personal Loan Agreement or you may have signed accepting the terms and conditions in the application form while availing personal loan and credit card facilities with the lending bank or the financial institution. You could be held responsible if you have defaulted in repayment of personal loan or credit card outstanding continuously for three instalments or six non-consecutive instalments to the lending bank or the financial institution.
Further, the lending bank or the financial institution, which granted personal loan and credit card facilities to you, may have collected from you security cheque/s as guarantee for the personal loan and credit card facilities provided to you. In the event of default on repayment of personal loan and credit card facilities by you, as mentioned above, the lending bank or financial institution may deposit your security cheque/s for collection and if the said security cheque/s are dishonoured by your bank due to insufficient funds in your bank account, the lending bank or financial institution may file a criminal complaint against you for dishonour of security cheque/s.
It should be noted that dishonour of cheque in the UAE is considered a criminal offence. This is in accordance with Article 401 of Federal Law No. 3 of 1987 on issuance of Penal Code of UAE states:
“Detention or a fine shall be imposed on anyone who, in bad faith, gives a draft (cheque) without a sufficient and drawable balance or who, after giving a cheque, withdraws all or part of the balance, making the balance insufficient for settlement of the cheque, or if he orders a drawee not to cash a cheque or makes or signs the cheque in a manner that prevents it from being cashed.”
Based on the aforementioned provision of law, upon completion of process of filing criminal complaint against you by the lending bank or the financial institution, there may be a travel ban imposed on you and in that event you may not be allowed to travel outside the UAE.
However, if the security cheque/s amount is lesser than Dh200,000 and if your lending bank or the financial institution is based in the emirate of Dubai, pursuant to Law No. 1 of 2017 called ‘Criminal Order Law’ the punishment may be a financial penalty which may vary between Dh2,000 and Dh10,000 depending on the cheque/s amount. Upon payment of this financial penalty, a travel ban imposed due to dishonour of cheque/s may be lifted against you and you may travel to your home country.
However, the lending bank or financial institution may file a civil case against you in the UAE to recover the outstanding personal loan and credit card amount and may again obtain a travel ban against you. It is recommended that you consult a legal practitioner in the UAE to avail further professional advice.
Know the law
Detention or a fine shall be imposed on anyone who, in bad faith, gives a draft (cheque) without a sufficient and drawable balance or who, after giving a cheque, withdraws all or part of the balance, making the balance insufficient for settlement of the cheque
