Disclaimer

LawMatch, operated by Ophir Technologies (Pty) Ltd, publishes plain-English information about South African law and connects people with attorneys. This page explains what that information is and is not.

Please read it before you rely on anything you find here. It is short, it is written in the same plain language as the rest of the site, and it will save you from the most common mistake people make with legal information online, which is treating a general explanation as an answer to their own situation.

Not legal advice

Nothing on this site is legal advice, and LawMatch is not a law firm. The guides, cost pages, calculators and templates describe how the law generally works. They cannot take account of your facts, the documents you have signed, or the way a particular court, tribunal or official may deal with your matter. Reading this site, submitting the matching form or emailing us does not create an attorney-client relationship with LawMatch or with any attorney until you and that attorney have agreed to it.

What "general information" actually means

A guide on this site sets out the rule. Advice applies the rule to you. Those are different things, and the gap between them is where people get hurt.

Legal outcomes turn on facts, and small facts change everything. Two people can read the same page about unfair dismissal and get opposite answers, because one was an employee and the other an independent contractor, because one had been there four months and the other four years, because one was given a hearing and the other was not, or because one referred the matter in time and the other did not. Two tenants can read the same page about deposits and get opposite answers, because one has a written lease with an inventory attached and the other has nothing in writing.

The wording of your own documents usually matters more than the general rule. A lease, an employment contract, a credit agreement, a sale agreement or a settlement can change what applies to you, and a guide has not seen your documents.

Procedure matters as much as substance. Being right does not help if you file in the wrong forum, miss a step, or fail to give a notice the law requires first.

An attorney will ask you questions that a web page cannot ask. That is the value you are paying for. Use these pages to understand your situation and to have a better first conversation, not to replace it.

Where this information applies

Everything on this site deals with the law of the Republic of South Africa. It is not written for any other country. If your matter has a foreign element, for example a contract governed by another country's law, an employer based abroad or a divorce started in another jurisdiction, treat these pages as background only.

Within South Africa, national legislation applies everywhere, but that is not the whole picture. Provinces have their own legislation in some areas, and municipalities have by-laws that differ from town to town on matters such as building work, noise, business licensing, informal trading and the use of property. Court practice also differs. Divisions of the High Court and individual magistrates' courts have their own practice directives, filing requirements and tariffs, and what is accepted in one court may be sent back in another.

So a page that says "you must give notice" or "you apply to the court" is telling you the shape of the process. The exact form, the exact court, the exact fee and the exact timetable are local questions.

The law changes, and so do these pages

Legislation is amended, regulations are replaced, and courts change how a rule is understood. A page that was correct when written can become wrong without anyone touching it.

That is why every guide and cost page carries a date showing when it was last updated. Check that date. The older it is, the more carefully you should confirm anything that matters before acting on it. We review pages when we become aware of a change, but we cannot promise that every page reflects the law as it stands today, and we do not undertake to update a page you have already read.

If your matter is urgent or valuable, confirm the current position with an attorney rather than with a page carrying an old date.

Figures that change every year

A lot of what people come here for is numbers, and numbers are the fastest thing on this site to go stale.

Amounts such as transfer duty brackets, court fees, sheriff's tariffs, Legal Aid means test thresholds, the national minimum wage, the earnings threshold under labour legislation, small claims court limits and various statutory maximums are set by regulation or notice and are commonly revised each year. When a new figure is published the old one stops applying, sometimes from a date in the middle of a year.

We handle this in two ways. First, each calculator page states the source of the table it uses and the date from which that table is effective, so you can see at a glance whether you are looking at a current figure. Second, we say plainly here that if the effective date on a calculator is older than the last national budget or the last annual determination in that field, you should check the official source before you rely on the number.

A figure on this site is never a quotation and never an assessment. It is an illustration of what the published table produces for the inputs you typed.

Calculators and cost ranges

The calculators apply published rate tables, statutory minimums and simple rules of thumb to the numbers you enter. They show what the law generally requires or what a matter typically costs, not what you will receive or pay. Rates such as transfer duty, court fees, sheriff's charges and Legal Aid means tests change every year, and the source and effective date of each table is stated on the calculator page. A calculator cannot tell you whether an injury is "serious", whether a dismissal was fair, or what a court will consider reasonable.

Cost ranges on the cost pages are illustrative. Actual fees depend on the attorney, their experience, where they practise, how contested the matter is and how long it takes. Always ask for a written fee estimate before instructing an attorney.

The limits of automated tools

A calculator is arithmetic with a form in front of it. It does exactly what its rules say and nothing else, and it is worth understanding what that rules out.

It cannot check your inputs. If you type the wrong salary, the wrong date, the wrong purchase price or the wrong number of years, it will give you a confident answer built on the wrong number. Nothing warns you.

It cannot weigh the things that decide most matters. Whether conduct was reasonable, whether a delay was excusable, whether an injury is serious, whether a term is unfair, whether a parent's plan is in a child's best interests: these are judgements, and a judgement is not a formula.

It cannot see your documents, your correspondence, what was said in a meeting, or what the other side will argue.

It cannot tell you whether the rule it applies is the right rule for you. A tool built around one statute will happily produce an answer even where a different statute, an exemption, a bargaining council agreement or a term in your own contract governs your situation instead.

It cannot account for negotiation, settlement or the cost of pursuing something. A calculated entitlement is not money in your hand.

Treat a result as a starting point for a conversation. If a result surprises you, that is a reason to get advice, not a reason to act.

Templates

Document templates are general forms. They may not suit your situation and may need changes before they are valid or useful for you. Have an attorney check anything that matters.

A template is a starting form, never a substitute for advice on your facts. It was drafted for a typical situation, and yours may not be typical. Some documents have formal requirements that a general form cannot guarantee you have met, for example requirements about signature, witnessing, service on the other party, or wording that a statute prescribes. Filling in the blanks correctly does not make a document appropriate, and using the wrong document can be worse than using none: it can waive a right, admit something, start a clock running, or bind you to terms you did not intend.

If a template concerns money, property, a child, your employment or a deadline, have an attorney read it before you sign or send it.

Reviewer status

Our content is written by LawMatch's editorial team and has been reviewed by Shephard Dube, who holds an LLB. He is not an admitted attorney and is not enrolled with the Legal Practice Council, so what he does is an editorial and legal accuracy review. It is not legal advice, and nothing on this site becomes legal advice because it has been through it.

A review of general information is not a substitute for advice on your own facts. Nobody reviewing a page can see your contract, your dates, your correspondence or what the other side is saying, and general information that is accurate can still be the wrong information for you. The guides, cost pages, calculators and templates remain the work of our editorial team, written from published legislation, regulations, official notices and public guidance, and every caveat elsewhere on this page about figures that move, automated tools and general information still applies.

Where an admitted attorney reviews a page, that attorney is named on the page along with their Legal Practice Council number, so that you can check them against the register yourself. If no attorney is named on a page, no admitted attorney has reviewed it.

Attorney listings and matches

Firms listed in the directory and matched through the form were registered with the Legal Practice Council when we verified them. Registration status can change, and verification is not an endorsement of a firm's skill, fees or conduct. LawMatch does not supervise any attorney's work and is not responsible for it. Reviews are the opinions of the people who wrote them.

Being matched with a firm is not a recommendation of that firm over any other, and it is not a prediction that the firm will take your matter or succeed with it. We do not promise any outcome. You choose whom to instruct, and you should ask for a written fee estimate and satisfy yourself about the firm before you do. The directory shows you the firms we list, and the Attorney terms set out what a firm agrees to when it receives a lead.

Editorial content and advertisements

Two kinds of material appear on these pages and they come from different places.

Our editorial content is the guides, the cost pages, the calculators, the templates and the directory entries. We write and maintain that material, and advertisers have no say in what it says. No business can pay us to be described favourably in a guide, to have a page written about it, or to have criticism removed.

Advertisements are the blocks served by Google. We do not choose which specific ads appear next to a page. They are selected by Google's systems, and an advertiser can appear beside a guide on a subject its business relates to without us knowing about it or approving of it.

If you cannot tell which is which, the rule of thumb is that anything inside an advertising block is not ours. Advertising blocks are labelled. An advertisement is never a recommendation by LawMatch, and appearing in one is not the same as appearing in our directory, which requires verification.

Advertising and third-party links

Advertisements on this site are served by Google and are not recommendations by LawMatch. Links to courts, government departments, ombud schemes and other organisations are provided to help you find them; we do not control those sites and cannot vouch for their content.

Act on time limits

Many legal rights are lost if you wait. Unfair dismissal referrals, Road Accident Fund claims, claims against the state, prescription of debts and objections to court orders all run on fixed clocks, and some of them are short. If a guide mentions a time limit that may apply to you, treat it as urgent and get advice before it runs out. The date on each guide shows when it was last updated; the law and the figures in it may have changed since.

Do not use a time limit on this site to reassure yourself that you still have time. Use it as a prompt to confirm the deadline that applies to your facts, with someone who can look at them. If you cannot afford an attorney, our Legal Aid page sets out the free and low-cost routes available in South Africa, and several of them can be approached the same day.

If you think something here is wrong

Tell us. We would rather fix a page than leave it wrong.

Email hello@lawmatch.co.za with the address of the page, the words you think are incorrect, what you believe the correct position is and, if you have one, a link to the legislation, regulation, notice or official source that supports it.

We read every report, check the page ourselves against the source and, where we agree, correct it and update the date at the top of the page. Where we do not agree, we tell you why. Where a page is unclear rather than wrong, we usually rewrite it, because in plain-English publishing an unclear page is a fault.

Reporting an error does not create an attorney-client relationship, does not make us your adviser, and does not pause any deadline in your own matter.

Emergencies

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call the police on 10111. The Gender-Based Violence Command Centre is available on 0800 428 428. Legal Aid South Africa's advice line is 0800 110 110. A website is not the right tool for an emergency.

Liability

To the extent the law allows, LawMatch is not liable for loss arising from reliance on information on this site or from the acts or omissions of any attorney you engage. Nothing here limits rights you have under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 or excludes liability that cannot be excluded by law. Our Terms of use set out the full position, and our Privacy policy explains what happens to the details you give us.