What to Do When Someone Dies in South Africa: A Step-by-Step Guide

The first 48 hours

Almost nothing legal has to happen immediately. The deadlines that matter start once the death has been registered, and the one hard deadline in the first fortnight is reporting the estate to the Master of the High Court within 14 days of the date of death.

What does have to happen quickly is the medical certification. A doctor or professional nurse completes the Notification of Death form (DHA-1663). Without it, Home Affairs cannot register the death and no burial or cremation order can be issued.

Step 1: register the death and get death certificates

A death is registered at a Department of Home Affairs office, or through a funeral undertaker designated to register deaths. The undertaker route is what most families use, because they are already handling the body and the paperwork moves together.

1. The medical practitioner completes the Notification of Death (DHA-1663) stating the cause of death as natural or unnatural.
2. If the death is unnatural, or the cause is unknown, the police and a forensic pathologist get involved first and the certificate takes longer.
3. Home Affairs registers the death and issues a death certificate.
4. Ask for several certified copies at the same time. You will need one for the Master, one for each bank, one for the pension fund, one for each insurer. Getting them later is a separate trip.
5. An abridged death certificate is issued on registration. An unabridged certificate, which shows the cause of death, is applied for separately and is what some insurers require.

Step 2: find the will

Before anyone can decide anything, you need to know whether there is a valid will, because it determines who is entitled to be appointed executor and who inherits.

• Check the obvious places first: a home safe, a filing cabinet, a bank safety deposit box.
• Phone the deceased's attorney, accountant, financial adviser and bank. Many wills are held by the institution that drafted them, and that institution is often nominated as executor in the will itself.
• Ask the Master's office. Wills are lodged with the Master once an estate is reported, so if a previous estate in the family was reported there, they may have a record.
• If you find a will, do not staple it, unstaple it, unpin it, write on it or remove anything from it. Any physical alteration raises a question the Master will make you answer with affidavits.

If no will turns up, the estate is intestate and the Intestate Succession Act 81 of 1987 decides who inherits. That is a fixed statutory formula, not a family negotiation.

Step 3: leave the assets alone

This is the step families get wrong most often, usually with good intentions. Until the Master appoints someone in writing, nobody has legal authority over the deceased's assets. Not the spouse, not the eldest child, not the person named as executor in the will.

• The deceased's bank accounts are frozen by the bank once it is notified of the death. That is correct and expected.
• Do not sell a car, transfer a property, or hand out belongings as keepsakes before the estate is reported. Anything distributed early may have to be recovered.
• Do not use the deceased's card or online banking, even to pay their own bills. Debit orders coming off a frozen account are a problem to solve, not a reason to keep the account live.
• Do keep paying premiums on short-term insurance for estate assets such as a house or car. If the house burns down uninsured, the loss falls on the heirs.
• Do secure the property and make a written list of what is there, ideally with photographs. This becomes the inventory later and it protects you from accusations afterwards.

Step 4: report the estate to the Master

The estate must be reported to the Master of the High Court within 14 days of death, in the area where the deceased lived for the 12 months before they died. This is section 7(1) of the Administration of Estates Act 66 of 1965.

What happens next depends on the value of the estate. Below R250,000 gross, the Master can appoint a Master's Representative under section 18(3) and the full procedure falls away. Above that, the Master issues Letters of Executorship and the full liquidation and distribution process applies.

Step 5: tell everyone else

None of these are legal deadlines, but each one is a bill that keeps running or a benefit that goes unclaimed until you make the call.

• The employer, for outstanding salary, leave pay and any group life cover.
• The retirement fund or pension fund. Fund death benefits are distributed by the fund trustees under section 37C of the Pension Funds Act, not by the will and not by the executor. This surprises almost everyone.
• Life insurers. A policy with a named beneficiary pays that beneficiary directly and does not fall into the estate, though it may still be counted as deemed property for estate duty.
• Medical aid, so a surviving dependant can be moved onto their own membership without a break in cover.
• The bank, every bank, including bond and vehicle finance.
• The municipality, for rates and services on any property.
• SASSA, if the deceased received any grant. Continuing to draw a grant after a death creates a debt and, in the worst case, a fraud investigation.
• SARS, which needs to be told so the deceased's final returns and the estate's tax position can be dealt with.

What this costs

Winding up an estate is not free, but a good part of the cost is fixed by law rather than by whoever is doing the work. The executor's remuneration is capped at 3.5% of the gross value of assets plus 6% of income collected after the death, plus VAT if the executor is a registered VAT vendor. The Master's fee is on a published sliding scale and is capped. Advertising in the Government Gazette and a local newspaper is required twice.

Our estate cost calculator adds these up for a given estate value so you can sanity-check a quote: /tools/deceased-estates/estate-costs-calculator

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