Deceased Estates in Pretoria

Pretoria

Address

351 Francis Baard Street, Pretoria, 0002

Phone

012 339 3333

Province

Gauteng

The Pretoria office moved to this address on 1 June 2026. Older guides and search results still show the SALU Building in Thabo Sehume Street.

Verified 15 August 2026 against the Department of Justice. Phone before you travel - these details do change.

What tends to hold estates up in Pretoria

• The Pretoria Master's office moved to 351 Francis Baard Street on 1 June 2026. A great deal of published guidance, including older search results, still gives the SALU Building address in Thabo Sehume Street. Confirm before you travel.
• The Chief Master's national office is separately located at the SALU Building. It is the escalation point when a provincial office will not respond, not a place to report an estate.
• Pretoria and Johannesburg are different offices with different queues. Check which one has jurisdiction before lodging, because a file sent to the wrong office costs weeks.
• Tshwane municipal accounts are another frequent hold-up at rates clearance. Keep them current during the administration.

Finding an estate attorney in Pretoria

We do not publish a list of firms. We cannot verify a firm's current standing, its fees, or whether it still does estate work, and a stale directory is worse than none for somebody who has just lost a family member. What we can do is point you at the regulator's own register, which is authoritative and current.

• The Legal Practice Council runs a public practitioner search at lpc.org.za/members-of-the-public/search-practitioners. Use it to confirm that anyone you are considering is actually on the practising roll.
• The Law Society of South Africa has a Find a Legal Practitioner directory at lssa.org.za/find-a-legal-practitioner.
• Ask for the firm's current Fidelity Fund certificate. Any attorney practising for their own account and handling trust money must hold one. If there is no valid certificate, the Legal Practitioners Fidelity Fund cannot consider a claim, which is exactly the protection you are relying on.
• The Master's office itself will assist members of the public with the reporting process, at no charge. For a straightforward estate, particularly a small one, that may be all the help you need.

What to ask before you appoint anyone

1. What executor's fee will you charge, as a percentage? The statutory maximum is 3.5% of gross assets plus 6% of post-death income. It is a ceiling, not a price, and it is negotiable.
2. Is VAT charged on top of that?
3. What else will be charged separately - conveyancing, tax returns, an administration fee?
4. Who will actually handle the file, and what happens if that person leaves?
5. How often will beneficiaries be updated, and by whom?
6. Get all of it in writing before you commit.

Work out what the tariff comes to on this estate before you have that conversation: executor's fees calculator. And if the estate is under R250 000 gross, read small estates first - you very likely do not need to pay anyone a percentage at all.

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