Written for people, not lawyers. Each guide has key points, a cost card, FAQs and a clear note on when you actually need an attorney.
It splits a property in two: one person gets the use of it for life, another gets ownership without the use. Testators love it because it looks like it protects a spouse and the children at once. In practice it produces some of the bitterest estate disputes there are, and the tax treatment surprises everybody.
9 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
The debt does not die with the owner. It becomes a claim against the estate, secured over the house, and what happens next depends on three things the family rarely knows: whether there was bond cover, whether the estate can service the instalments, and whether the bank will let an heir take the bond over.
8 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
They are the document from the Master that makes you the executor. Until they are issued, nobody has authority over the estate, which is why banks freeze accounts and why the family cannot sell the car, and why anything done before they arrive can be undone.
7 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
It is the executor's formal accounting of the estate: everything owned, everything owed, what administration cost, and who gets what. It lies open for inspection for at least 21 days, and that window is the only convenient moment to object.
7 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
When the debts exceed the assets, the will stops deciding anything. Creditors are paid in a legal order of preference, heirs receive nothing, and the executor has to give creditors the choice between surrendering the estate and letting the administration run.
7 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
You can leave your estate to whomever you choose. But freedom of testation does not defeat the duty to support a dependent child, and a maintenance claim against the estate ranks as a debt, which is paid before any heir sees anything.
8 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
Where a deceased estate is worth R250 000 or less, the Master can appoint a representative to wind it up without an executor, without advertising and without a liquidation and distribution account. It is faster, far cheaper, and most families are never told it exists.
7 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
A retirement fund death benefit does not follow your will and it does not automatically follow your nomination form. The fund's trustees decide who receives it, and the law obliges them to look after your dependants first.
7 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
Yes. The Master of the High Court can remove an executor on application where the executor fails to do the work, is disqualified from acting, or acts against the interests of the estate. The High Court can also remove one. Before you go that far, an interested party can lodge an objection to the liquidation and distribution account while it lies open for inspection.
9 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
There is no central register you can search before an estate is reported. You find a will by asking the deceased's attorney, their bank, their financial adviser and their family, by checking the house, the safe and any safety deposit box, and by asking the Master of the High Court, who holds wills only once an estate has been reported.
8 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
The house stays in the deceased's name until the executor is appointed and a conveyancer registers the transfer. Nothing can be sold or transferred before the Master issues letters of executorship. The bond does not disappear, the bank must be told, and the rates, levies and insurance must keep being paid while the estate is wound up.
9 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
When an account holder dies the bank freezes the deceased's accounts until the Master appoints an executor. A joint account is usually frozen too, because the deceased's share of the money falls into the estate. Banks differ, and a survivor is sometimes allowed limited access. If you were married in community of property, the whole joint estate is frozen.
9 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
A living will is an advance refusal of life-sustaining treatment. It is not a will and has nothing to do with your property or the Master. South Africa has no statute that expressly governs living wills, so their force rests on the common law right to refuse treatment and on informed consent under the National Health Act 61 of 2003. A living will cannot work if nobody knows it exists.
9 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
A will can be contested, but only on recognised grounds: the formalities were not met, the testator lacked capacity, undue influence, fraud or forgery, a later will, or a beneficiary who signed as a witness. Unfairness is not a ground, but spouses and dependent children have maintenance claims regardless of the will.
9 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
No. Anyone of full legal capacity can be appointed executor, and many people wind up a simple estate themselves, dealing directly with the Master. But the Master often requires a lay executor to appoint an agent for a larger or more complicated estate, and property transfer always needs a conveyancer.
8 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
Estate duty is 20% of the dutiable amount of an estate up to R30 million and 25% above that, after a R3.5 million abatement. Everything left to a spouse is deducted first, which is why most estates pay nothing. The executor works it out and pays SARS before the heirs.
9 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
A simple deceased estate in South Africa takes about six to twelve months from death to final distribution. Reporting, the Master issuing letters of executorship, advertising for creditors, the liquidation and distribution account lying open for 21 days, and transferring property each take their own time, and a complex or disputed estate can take years.
9 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
A surviving spouse can claim reasonable maintenance from the estate under the Maintenance of Surviving Spouses Act, and a child's maintenance claim against a parent survives death. Both exist whatever the will says. You lodge the claim in writing with the executor, and if it is rejected a court decides.
8 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
Each guide on this page answers one question that a real person asked, in the words they asked it. Not a summary of an Act. Not an article about an area of law. One question, one answer, written so that somebody with no legal training can read it once and know what to do next.
They are written in house by the LawMatch editorial team from the South African statutes, the published rules of the courts and tribunals, and the guidance the CCMA, the Master of the High Court, the Information Regulator and the ombud schemes put out themselves. They are written for the person with the problem, not for the person charging for the answer.
Say the important part first. The content on this site has been reviewed by Shephard Dube, who holds an LLB but is not an admitted attorney. Where an admitted attorney has reviewed a guide, that attorney is named on it, with their Legal Practice Council number, so you can check them. No guide carries such a name yet, and a review of general information is not advice on your facts in any event. LawMatch is not a law firm and does not give legal advice. Read the guides as good general information that helps you ask better questions, and get a person involved when the stakes are real.
Most people do not know which area of law their problem sits in, and there is no reason they should. A landlord who has locked you out feels like a police matter. A debt collector phoning your office feels like harassment. A retrenchment that was really a dismissal feels like bad luck. Sorting your problem into the right box is a legal skill, and needing that skill before you can get help is exactly the barrier this site exists to remove.
So do not start by picking an area of law. Start by writing down what actually happened, in order, with dates. Who did what, on what day, and what you want to happen now. Then find the sentence below that comes closest to your situation. Getting to the right area is most of the work, because the forum, the deadline and the free route all follow from it, and all three are easy to get wrong at the start and impossible to fix at the end.
If your problem seems to sit in two areas, it probably does. A divorce with a house and a bond in it is family law and property law at the same time. Read both. Nothing stops you.
Work. Anything about a job. Being dismissed, being retrenched, a disciplinary hearing, a contract changed without your agreement, unpaid leave or overtime, a restraint of trade blocking a new job, and claiming from the Unemployment Insurance Fund. If you have been dismissed, read how to refer an unfair dismissal to the CCMA today. The clock is short and it starts on the day you were dismissed.
Family. Divorce, what happens to the house and the pension, care and contact with children, child maintenance and arrears, protection orders where there is abuse, unmarried fathers, parenting plans and antenuptial contracts. Start with what to do if maintenance is not being paid if money for a child has stopped.
Where you live. Renting and buying. Deposits, rent increases, repairs, a landlord entering or cutting services, breaking a lease early, eviction from either side, transfer costs, and body corporate levies. If somebody is trying to remove you from your home, read can a landlord evict me without a court order first.
Debt and credit. Money you owe. Debt review, sequestration, a summons or a judgment, an order attaching your salary, repossession, debt collectors, section 129 notices, and wrong listings on your credit record. Old debts often cannot be enforced at all, which is why how to check if a debt has prescribed is the first thing to read when a collector calls about something ancient.
Claims and compensation. Harm somebody else caused. Road Accident Fund claims, injuries at a shop or from a dog, medical negligence, rejected insurance claims, defamation, and your rights as a consumer when goods or a contract go wrong.
Wills and estates. Writing a will while you can, and winding up an estate after a death. Reporting the estate to the Master, executors and their fees, who inherits when there is no will, contested wills, and the house or bank account nobody can touch. Start with how to write a valid will in South Africa if you are planning rather than grieving.
Criminal. Being arrested, your rights at the police station, bail, how a trial runs, laying a charge, diversion for a first offence, missing a court date, and clearing an old record.
Immigration. Visas of every kind, renewals, changing status, appealing a Home Affairs refusal, permanent residence, citizenship, asylum, and what your rights are if you are detained.
Traffic and AARTO. Fines, disputing them, demerit points, warrants for unpaid fines, drinking and driving, reckless and negligent driving, an impounded car, an expired licence, and what to do at the scene of an accident.
Small business and POPIA. Running something small. Registering a company, contracts with customers and suppliers, hiring your first employee, chasing an unpaid invoice, partner disputes, protecting a name, and every duty the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 puts on you.
Every guide follows the same shape, because the shape is the point.
The direct answer comes first. Yes or no, or the one sentence that settles it, in the opening lines. You should never have to read nine paragraphs of background to find out whether you have a case. If the honest answer is that it depends, the guide says what it depends on straight away.
Then the steps. What to do, in order, with the words you actually say and the office you actually walk into.
Then a worked example. A named person with dates and figures, so you can see the rule move. The example is always labelled as illustrative. It is not somebody's real matter and no outcome in it is promised to you.
Then what to do this week. The two or three things that are worth doing before anything else, usually because a deadline is running.
Then the documents to gather. A list you can work through, because the single biggest saving in any legal matter is arriving with the file already in order.
Then the deadlines. Set out plainly, with the date each clock starts running from, since that is where people lose good cases.
Then the common mistakes. What people do that quietly destroys their position: sending an angry letter, signing an acknowledgement of debt, waiting for an internal appeal while the referral period runs out.
Then the free route, before the paid one. Every guide tells you what the CCMA, an ombud, a tribunal, the Maintenance Court, the Small Claims Court or Legal Aid South Africa can do for nothing before it discusses an attorney. That order is deliberate and it never changes.
Plain English throughout. Where a Latin or technical term is unavoidable it is explained in the same sentence. Acts are named in full the first time they appear, so you can look them up yourself rather than take our word for anything.
No invented authority. We do not put a section number in a guide unless it is real, and we do not name a case unless it exists and says what we say it says. Where a rule comes from common law rather than a statute, the guide says so instead of inventing a section.
Figures that change are flagged as changing. Thresholds set by ministerial notice, rates that move with the repo rate, and tables that are updated after the Budget are marked as moving and you are told to confirm the current one. Every worked example is labelled illustrative. No guide promises you an outcome, because nobody can.
A guide explains the rule. A calculator runs the arithmetic for your dates and amounts and shows its working, so start with the guide and take the number from the calculators. A template gives you the document, so once you know what to send, the templates have the letter, the checklist or the affidavit. The cost pages tell you what the paid route runs to, before you commit to it.
Use them in that order. Understand the rule, check the number, put it in writing, then decide whether to pay anybody.
Stop reading and get a person when any of this is true. You have been served with court papers. A deadline is days away. A child, your home or your liberty is at stake. The other side already has an attorney. The amount would change your life. Or you have read the guide twice and still cannot see where your facts fit.
Free first, always. Legal Aid South Africa is on 0800 110 110 for people who pass its means test. The CCMA is on 0861 16 16 16 for anything about a job. Ombud schemes, the Maintenance Court and the Rental Housing Tribunal cost nothing, and the Small Claims Court checker tells you whether a money claim fits there. The free legal help page lists all of it in one place.
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