Various other acts and regulations may, however, also be applicable, like those applicable to income tax (with due allowance for VAT and CGT), Estate duty and Donations tax, and support of surviving spouse.

When someone dies, his/her estate must be reported to the Master of the High Court as soon as possible, and certain report documents, together with the original will, where applicable, should be delivered to the Master.

In the case of estates with a gross value of less than R250 000 the Master may dispense with an official appointment of an Executor to execute the required administering process. In all other cases an Executor will be appointed by the Master, who will issue an Executor’s letter to the appointed Executor.

As soon as the Executor’s letter has been issued the formal administering of the estate, which the Executor has to follow, will commence. One of the Executor’s first tasks would be to announce to the creditors, acquire details regarding estate assets and have it valued if necessary, and recover certain assets. Known and filed liabilities should be investigated and attention must be paid to income tax.

The Executor is now compelled to submit a liquidation and distribution account (statement of assets and liabilities) to the Master of the High Court within six months after being issued with the Executor’s letter, or ask for a formal postponement. This estate account will indicate all assets and liabilities, distribution of heirs and details of assets outside the estate which are directly payable to beneficiaries.

The Master will check the estate account and then issue a questionnaire to the Executor. As soon as the Master has granted approval the Executor may proceed to announce the account as being open for inspection for 21 days at the Master and the nearest Magistrate’s Office.

Should any written challenges be submitted, it should be dealt with according to the regulations in the Administration of Estates Act. Should there be no challenges, or when the Executor has disposed of all challenges, may the Executor proceed to make payments to heirs and carry over any other assets to the beneficiaries.

In most cases the administering process should not be complicated, therefore it would be possible to finalise within a fair period of time (approximately 6 to 9 months). There are, however, many obstacles which may slow down this process and even bring the administering process to a virtual standstill. Some of the most well-known and general obstacles are poor service from government and private institutions, invalid and unpractical wills, shortage of cash, quarrels and disputes among family members and beneficiaries, lack of information, disorder in the tax and other affairs of the deceased, lawsuits before and after death, and legal postmortems in case of an unnatural death, which may sometimes be required before policies can be paid out.

It is therefore clear that the administering of an estate is a specialised environment which should be left to capable people with knowledge of the Administration of Estates Act and years of experience. Ignorance regarding the run of events as well as errors of judgement may eventually cost you dearly if you don’t make use of the available expertise.

This article is a general information sheet and should not be used or relied on as legal or other professional advice. No liability can be accepted for any errors or omissions nor for any loss or damage arising from reliance upon any information herein. Always contact your legal adviser for specific and detailed advice. Errors and omissions excepted (E&OE)

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A simple way to describe liquidation is that liquidation is the winding up of a firm by selling off its free (un-pledged) assets to convert them into cash to pay the firm’s unsecured creditors. Before a liquidation application can be issued in court, a founding affidavit needs to be drafted. This affidavit will include all the details of the Applicant and / or Respondent. The Applicant is the person who wants to liquidate the company and the Respondent is the company. In the case where the Applicant is the company, there will be no Respondent. The affidavit will also include any details of the company, employees and creditors. A bond of security also needs to be signed for the purpose of the Master of the High Court.

Once the application is issued, the only people who receive this notice is the South African Revenue Services (SARS), the Master of the High Court, employees of the company and any trade unions. As soon as this is done, a Master’s certificate is obtained verifying the application, and a provisional liquidation order is granted.  A return date is then set, and all creditors are notified of the provisional liquidation through registered post and by placing the provisional order in two local newspapers. Should the Applicant’s attorneys receive no notice of intention to defend the matter, a final liquidation order is granted. The order together with the application is sent to the Master of the High Court and a liquidator will be appointed.

Sequestration is the preferred option for the individual who has exhausted all other options of resolution, and is now in a position where even if all their assets are sold, they would be left with such a high shortfall that it would be unreasonable to expect them to recover from this loss. A sequestration involves a little more administration work before a court date can be obtained. Before the Notice of Motion and Founding Affidavit are drafted, a valuer needs to be appointed in order to value the Applicant or Respondent’s estate. This needs to be done in order to ascertain whether the debtor is indeed over-indebted, and whether he / she has enough assets to provide a benefit for all creditors involved.

 In the matter of a voluntary sequestration, the Applicant will be the party whose estate is to be sequestrated. The valuer needs to value the property of the Applicant on a forced sale scale. This will be calculated by subtracting 20% of the actual value of the property.

As soon as the valuer has made an estimate for the Applicant / Respondent’s estate, a Statement of Debtor’s Affairs needs to be handed in to the Master of the High Court for inspection by all creditors. This needs to be done no less than 14 or more than 30 days before the court date. A Notice of Surrender needs to be sent through registered post to all creditors to inform them that the Statement of Debtor’s Affairs is available for inspection.

The Notice of Surrender needs to be posted in two local newspapers and the Government Gazette no less than 14, or more than 30 days before the court date. Once all of the above-mentioned requirement has been adhered to, the notice of surrender can be annexed to the Founding Affidavit and can be heard by the court, no Bond of Security is needed at this point. A sequestration can only be heard by the High Court, whereas a liquidation can be heard either by a Magistrate’s Court or by the High Court, depending on the merits of the case.

This article is a general information sheet and should not be used or relied on as legal or other professional advice. No liability can be accepted for any errors or omissions nor for any loss or damage arising from reliance upon any information herein. Always contact your legal adviser for specific and detailed advice. Errors and omissions excepted (E&OE)

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