The curators of liquidated VBS Mutual Bank have set their sights on former president Jacob Zuma's homestead, according to court papers seen by TimesLIVE on Tuesday.

The papers filed at the high court in Pietermaritzburg said Zuma had to pay back R7.3m on his bond or the liquidators would attach his property.

VBS granted a loan to Zuma in 2016 after he was ordered to pay back some of the money spent on upgrades to his Nkandla homestead.

Zuma fell behind on the repayments for the first time in August 2018, when he was in arrears of R109,568. A letter of demand was sent to Zuma. "Subsequent to the delivery of the demand letter, the first defendant [Zuma] effected sporadic repayments, all of which were less than the agreed monthly installments."

The court papers then detailed attempts between May 6 and June 18, 2019, to make additional payments. However, "the first defendant has failed to effect payment of the full arrears".

The court papers, filed by VBS Mutual Bank’s liquidator, Anoosh Rooplal, show that Zuma has until September 14 to file a notice to state whether or not he will defend the summons. Should he defend it, he would have 20 days after that to file responding papers.

According to the court papers, as at August 31 2019, Zuma is R558,691 in arrears on his VBS loan, and owes a total of R7,345,849.

Zuma's spokesperson Vukile Mathabela told TimesLIVE that he had made contact with the former president's legal team over the court papers.

“I've called the attorneys and I'm waiting for them to come back to me. They will know what's going on,” he said, promising that he would make a statement once he had a response from the lawyers.