The following article was published by Smart About Money via their newsletter on 18 September 2024:
It is sad that South African family lives often disintegrate after the death of a member with some money.
Euphemia Daniels, acting chief director of operations at the under-resourced and severely compromised Master’s Office, told lawyers and other fiduciary professionals at the annual Fiduciary Institute of Southern Africa conference recently that family feuds occupy most of the office’s time.
The Master’s Office deals with our estates when we die and manages the Guardians Fund for minor children whose parents pass on before they are adults. It has faced many problems recently – including corruption, frozen posts, a lack of generators during loadshedding and a huge volume of estates during Covid – causing big backlogs in the processing of estates and the distribution of money and other property to those who are meant to inherit.
It could do without families fighting over who will get access to what after a family member dies. And fights occur frequently because so many South Africans die without a will or a valid will. Allan Gray recently quoted High Court statistics indicating that 85 percent of South Africans don’t have a valid will.
It is easy to think a will is not important because if you die without one, you die intestate and the Law of Intestate Succession is then used to determine who gets what. Immediate family should inherit, but there can be problems when minor children inherit, adult children inherit when a spouse has a greater need, and when families have been split by divorce, blended into new families and relationships have not been formalised or accepted by other family members.
It is easy to think you can fight your case in court – but court cases are expensive and take time. Our family resources are often scarce and far too valuable to be wasted on court applications when a simple will could resolve the issues.
At the FISA conference, Professor Francois du Toit, the head of the Private Law Department at the University of Cape Town, also highlighted how some seemingly conflicting court rulings create a lot of uncertainty. There have been recent conflicting court decisions to accept as valid a will that hasn’t been drawn up, signed and witnessed as the law requires, claims for maintenance from a deceased estate under the Maintenance of Surviving Spouses Act and clauses in wills the courts have been overturned.
If there is any one you really love in your life, make sure they have certainty about their financial life should you predecease them. Don’t leave them at the mercy of the Master’s Office, lawyers and courts.
This week is wills week which means lawyers are offering free will drafting services. Make sure yours is valid and will result in those you love living the life you would have wanted them to live should you not be around to provide it.
Click here for a list of the presentations given at this year’s FISA conference.