The Conveyancing Process

Conveyancing involves the registration of a transfer of immovable property from one person to another and all ancillary registrations such as the registration of the purchaser’s bond and cancellation of the seller’s bond. A conveyancer is an attorney specialising in the drafting of deeds and documents which is submitted to the Deeds Office to affect these registrations.

Following the sale of a property, the seller will appoint the conveyancer to attend to the transfer (transferring attorney), while the buyer will appoint a conveyancer to attend to the registration of his bond (though in practice this appointment is usually made by the bank granting the bond).

The process starts with the signing of the sales agreement (also known as an offer to purchaser and by various other synonyms) by the purchaser and seller. The agreement is then forwarded to the transferring attorney.

The transferring attorney will then open their file and will request FICA documentation from the seller and purchaser and all other documents and information required to proceed with the transfer. The transferring attorney will confirm when any deposit is payable, or when bond grant is due. If the seller has a bond that needs to be cancelled, the transferring attorney will contact the current bondholder to facilitate bond cancellation. Rates- and levy clearance figures will also be requested from the municipality and body corporate (where applicable).

The purchaser must then ensure the deposit is paid to the transferring attorney who will in turn invest the funds for the benefit of the purchaser. If the purchaser needs to obtain a bond, he will submit the necessary documents in support of application to the financial institutions and must provide proof of bond grant in due course.

Bond registration attorneys will attend to register the bond and will liaise with the transferring attorneys regarding amounts available for guarantees. The transferring attorneys will also liaise with the bond cancellation attorneys appointed to cancel the seller’s existing bond – transfer, bond registration and bond cancellations are registered simultaneously in the deeds office.

Transfer documents will be drafted by transferring attorneys and bond documents by the bond registration attorneys. Appointments will then be arranged with all parties to sign the respective documents. The purchaser will also be furnished with pro forma statements of account by the transferring attorneys and bond registration for payment before transfer can occur.

The transferring attorneys will provide rates – and levy clearance figures to the seller for payment and will obtain the respective certificates. This is to ensure that all amounts due to the municipality and body corporate are paid up to date of registration.

All relevant information of the parties and of the transaction will be submitted to SARS for transfer duty purposes and payment will be made where applicable.

The transferring attorneys must also ensure that all compliance certificates (gas- and electrical) are received.

As soon as the transferring attorneys, bond registration attorneys and bond cancellation attorneys are ready to lodge, they will arrange for simultaneous lodgement of their documents at the deeds office.

Once in the deeds office, the examiners will determine whether there is any interdict noted against the property which prohibits transfer. The matter will then be referred to 3 levels of examination, first, a junior examiner, then senior examiner and finally a monitor. This process takes about 7-8 business days.

Once all examiners are satisfied, the matter will be placed on preparation – this gives conveyancers the opportunity to confirm that they are ready to proceed with registration. If examiners are not satisfied, the matter will be rejected and returned to the conveyancers for the required corrections, whereafter the matter must be re-lodged and the examination process starts afresh.

On the day of registration, the conveyancers for the transferring attorneys, bond registration attorneys and bond cancellation attorneys will appear in the deeds office before the Registrar to execute all deeds.

On receipt of confirmation of registration, the purchaser’s bank will pay all guarantees issued. The transferring attorney will then prepare final statements of account for both the seller and purchaser. From the purchase price, bond cancellation figures, bond cancellation costs, agent’s commission and any other relevant disbursement will be deducted and the balance will then be paid to the seller.

The deeds office will release the original deed of transfer and bond to the relevant attorneys once all data capturing has been completed. If a bond is registered over the property, the transferring attorneys must forward the original deed of transfer to the bank for safekeeping. Where no bond is registered, the original deed of transfer will be handed to the purchaser.