The new Property Practitioners Act aims to better regulate and monitor processes, and has been heralded by estate agents as a vast improvement on the Estate Agency Affairs Act.

While there are many factors that influence property buyers’ preferred investment, as experienced property lawyers we’ve selected a few points that are commonly considered by when purchasing property.

An Apostille certificate simply means that your document that originates in South Africa has been authenticated or legalised by The Legalisation Section at the Department of International relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), or the Registrar of the High Court of South Africa, thereby authenticating the origin of a public document. 

New regulation coming into effect on 25 February 2019 makes it more difficult and expensive to replace lost title deeds.

Buying into any form of community scheme means binding yourself to comply with all the scheme’s rules and regulations. Read and understand these rules before you buy - our courts will usually hold you to them.

Dismissal from employment is a drastic remedy, and not lightly upheld by our courts.  But where an employee breaches his/her general duty to act loyally, honestly and in their employers’ best interests, it’s certainly on the table.

Delay suing your debtor for too long and you lose your right to claim forever.  That’s the practical effect of our law of prescription, and it’s like throwing money away.  It’s also totally avoidable.

Let’s look at a recent High Court case in which a property seller sued a trustee personally for R2m. The trustee, it turned out, had no authority to sign the sale agreement alone, causing the sale to collapse.

There are many benefits to the “buy and build” option when you decide to buy a house, but they come with some important cautions.

The Estate Agency Affairs Board says that up to 50,000 agents may be operating without the required Fidelity Fund Certificate, and whilst many former agents have probably just closed up shop, there is a chance that the agent who sold or rented out your house for you is (whether inadvertently or by design) unregistered.

We look at how this affects you, with a note to agents on the importance of renewing your Fidelity Fund Certificates and using your EAAB PrivySeals.