Although all of this is new information that we have learnt over the last couple of months I am putting it into a blog format rather than under the Tab of updates as it is a large amount of information on one particular subject – Executorship.
My youngest sister died in December 2015 and she had nominated my husband, Trevor, as her Executor. He is neither and attorney nor an accountant but in his role as Executor he will ensure that her wishes as sated in her Will are carried out correctly. Where a person has named another as Executor but that person is neither a lawyer nor an accountant, it is extremely important that it is stated in the Will, that the nominated Executor has “powers of assumption’. This means that s/he will approach a lawyer or an accountant for assistance, which we have done.
Although all of this is new information that we have learnt over the last couple of months I am putting it into a blog format rather than under the Tab of updates as it is a large amount of information on one particular subject – Executorship.
My youngest sister died in December 2015 and she had nominated my husband, Trevor, as her Executor. He is neither and attorney nor an accountant but in his role as Executor he will ensure that her wishes as sated in her Will are carried out correctly. Where a person has named another as Executor but that person is neither a lawyer nor an accountant, it is extremely important that it is stated in the Will, that the nominated Executor has “powers of assumption’. This means that s/he will approach a lawyer or an accountant for assistance, which we have done.
Although we have found and completed the forms as found on the Department of Justice site and put together her personal documents we have discovered that there are some things of which we had no knowledge.
- Personal documents
a) Iris was married in 1981 and divorced in 1989. She died leaving no spouse or children. Her marriage certificate was nowhere to be found and the Department of Home Affairs can no longer produce one as when she got divorced they simply changed her status on the system. (no date or other information). They could give no information on her divorce decree which is what we needed now. With regard to proving her marriage we were able to get the confirmation from the church where the marriage was conducted.
b) The Department of Home Affairs informed us that we had to obtain her divorce decree from the High Court where the divorce was ordered. Fortunately it was here in Durban. I took a look on the internet and saw some really scary stories about obtaining this decree as records were not in great order at the Court. But to get the decree ‘in your hand’ you need the Case Number. That number you have to search for in the dusty ledgers yourself. From all the horror stories on the internet and lots of offers from agencies to assist (at a fee of course!) we decided to bite the bullet and go to the Court first. When he told the clerk he wanted to look at the 1989 ledgers it was hoped that the clerk could find them. He brought one through to Trevor and while he looked through it the Clerk would look for more. It was in this 1st ledger! I had expected Trevor to be a number of hours and was amazed when he finished in less than an hour, with 2 copies of the decree in his hand
c) As Iris was divorced and had no children her parents are considered to be the next-of-kin, both of whom are deceased. This the Executor needs to prove with their death certificates. Mother was easy as she died in 2009 and we kept these certificates for ‘just in case.’ Father died in 1982 so we thought that we would have to rely on Home Affairs to produce this. Before we went that route, I decided to check all the things Mum had retained and found his original death certificate. Thanks for being well organised Mum!
- Life Insurance or Retirement Annuities
These are not usually part of the Estate but are paid directly to the named beneficiaries. Our problem was that Iris had named her mother as beneficiary and, as said above, she died in 2009 and the name of another beneficiary had not been submitted. This has meant that the 2 policies need to be paid into her Estate for distribution.
- Jurisdiction of the Master of the High Court
This was another learning curve for us. Iris owned a property in Modderfontein, South Gauteng which she had rented out, she was living in Broederstroom, North West and died in a Pretoria hospital in North Gauteng while we reside in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. We presumed that the Executor could be appointed by any Master of the Court. Sorry, not so. Only the Master of the High Court in the area in which the deceased had lived for the 6 months prior to death has jurisdiction to appoint the Executor. In our case it is the Master in Mafikeng, NW Province so all papers are to be couriered to that office.
I trust that our experiences will be of assistance to you should you or someone you know is nominated as Executor to an Estate