Question posted in the Family Law category relating to Eastern Cape
I am trying to find my dads will. He stayed at my granny's house, only two other siblings have the keys to that house. They refuse me to search my dad's room and they refuse to open up the safe for me to check if there is a will in it. What are my options?
Message from the Attorney
Hi there and thank you for your question,
I am a practicing attorney based in South Africa and I will assist you with your question. Please feel free to ask as many follow up questions in order to clarify your question. If you have a new question, you must please open a new thread.
I think that you might not actually have too many options. The reason I am saying this is that you don't even know for 100% certain that your Dad left a Will, and if you do know that he left a Will, you don't even know that the will is definitely at your Granny's house.
There is an obligation on whoever has the Will to submit it to the Master's office so that the Master can appoint an executor to administer the estate.
Anyone (including you) can report the estate to the Master's office and submit copies of the death certificate, next of kin affidavit, inventory, etc so that the Master can appoint somebody to administer the estate.
There is no requirement that the Master MUST receive a Will.
If the Master does NOT receive a Will, then the estate will be administered in accordance with the laws of intestate succession. If the Master does receive a Will, then the estate will be administered in accordance with the provisions of the Will.
The Master won't be able to assist you in getting access to the property so you can search it.
The police won't assist either - primarily because this is not a criminal complaint.
The only other way is to get a High Court order allowing you to search the property, but it will take ages to get such an order and it will cost tens of thousands of Rands. Possibly not worth it.
My advice is that you report the estate to the Master, and then write to the Master to say that "as far as you know, there is a Will, and that it is in your siblings possession at the house". Then, see what happens.
If you can get the Master to appoint you as the executor (because you are reporting the estate) then you will have a lot of control over the estate - which is a good thing.
If there is a part of the answer which you need more advice on, or clarity please continue in this same thread instead of opening a new question.
Att. Patrick
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Message from the Customer
Thank you for your quick and efficient reply. Besides the will what about my dad's personal belongings that are in the safe, such as insurance policies, other paperwork and gold items.
Do we also just inform the Master about it?
Thanks
Message from the Attorney
You will, as part of reporting the estate to the Master, need to complete an inventory. The Master will use the inventory to determine whether the estate is a large estate (over R250k) which needs an executor, or a small estate (under R250k) which needs an administrator.
The Master will also then use the inventory to question the executor (when the Liquidation and Distribution account has been drawn up) to check whether everything has been recorded correctly or not.
Unfortunately, if something is left off the inventory (e.g. a gold watch) because the family hide it, and it does not appear on the Liquidation and Distribution account, then the Master will never know about it.
So, tell the Master everything on the inventory if you are worried that family members will hide assets.