The transfer process

A seller or his agent will instruct the transferring attorney via a written Deed of Sale. The transferring attorney will write to the sellers bank (if there is a bond over the property) to forward to himself the title deed and cancellation figure required to cancel the bond. The bank will forward the transferring attorney the title deed and they will simultaneously instruct a cancellation attorney on their panel and forward the mortgage bond and final cancellation figures to cancel the bond.

In a typical instance, the purchaser of the property will have obtained a bond from a bank and when granted, the bank will appoint a bond attorney/conveyancer on their panel to register the bond on their behalf.

Very early in the process, the transferring attorney, bond attorney and cancellation attorney communicate with each other. The transferring attorney will request the necessary guarantees from the bond attorney. The transferring attorney will also obtain a rates or levy clearance certificate from the municipality (or body corporate as the case may apply). A transfer duty receipt from the local Receiver of Revenue is also necessary without which transfer at the deeds registry will be rejected. The funding for these aspects form part of the proforma account that the purchaser is liable for, except for the rates or levy which the seller pays for. Transfer duty has to be paid up-front by the buyer and getting the receipt from the SARS offices can sometimes take up to 2 or 3 weeks. Similarly it can take weeks to get the rates clearance figures from local council. Both of these processes commonly hold up the transfer process.

After the parties (seller and purchaser) have completed all their signing at the transferring attorney and bond attorney, both attorneys as well as the cancellation attorney forward their documents to special attorney agents near the deeds registry. Each agent of the three attorneys then corroborate with each other before lodging their documents to the deeds registry office. Corroboration is important as all the attorneys documents must be filed at the deeds office simultaneously after which the bond cancellation, new bond registration and the new transfer are registered on that same day.