How our informational conveyancing support is structured

A transfer usually starts with a read of the signed Offer to Purchase, the seller's disclosures and the suspensive condition for bond approval. Once the conditions are met the transferring attorney runs a Deeds Office search, applies for a rates clearance certificate from the municipality and, for a sectional title unit, a levy clearance certificate from the body corporate. The last stage is lodgement and registration at the Deeds Office that serves the area.

Each stage has its own checks and its own follow-ups. Buyers should confirm that the bond approval period and any occupation date line up with the likely registration date rather than with the day the offer was signed.

The documents usually reviewed are the Offer to Purchase, the seller's disclosures, the title deed, the sectional plan with the scheme's conduct and management rules where one applies, the latest municipal rates account, and the body corporate's levy statement and reserve fund position.

• Offer to Purchase and any addenda
• Deeds Office search: title deed, bond, servitudes, endorsements, interdicts
• Sectional title records and levy statements, where applicable

A systematic review surfaces the things that need negotiation or administrative work before lodgement: arrear rates or levies, an outstanding electrical compliance certificate, unapproved building plans for an enclosed stoep or braai room, or a seller representation that the title deed does not support.

South Africa splits the work between three attorneys. The seller appoints the transferring attorney, an attorney admitted as a conveyancer, who drives the transfer and lodges the deed. The buyer's bank appoints the bond attorney to register the new bond, and the seller's bank appoints the cancellation attorney to cancel the old one. All three lodge together, and the deed cannot register unless all three batches are in order.

Around them sit the candidate attorney and the conveyancing secretary who prepare and track the file, and the property practitioner — the estate agent — who is regulated by the PPRA under the Property Practitioners Act 22 of 2019 and must hold a valid Fidelity Fund Certificate. Conveyancers are regulated by the Legal Practice Council under the Legal Practice Act 28 of 2014, and only an admitted conveyancer may lodge a transfer.

The bulk of the work in a typical transfer is the Deeds Office search, the preparation of the transfer documents, the transfer duty submission to SARS, the review of the bond documents and compliance with municipal requirements. The point of the exercise is to reduce risk by making both parties' obligations and the next steps explicit.

• Deeds Office search to confirm registered ownership and identify servitudes, endorsements, interdicts and the existing bond.
• Review of the Offer to Purchase and any addenda, including suspensive conditions, the bond approval period and the occupation date.
• Rates and levy clearance certificates, the electrical compliance certificate and, where relevant, plumbing, gas, electric fence and beetle certificates.

Practical support also covers the sectional title records — the scheme rules that decide whether you may keep a dog, run a business from the unit or enclose a balcony — plus the rates and levy position and an explanation of transfer costs. The conveyancer is a neutral facilitator between the bank's requirements, the seller's obligations and the Deeds Office.