good morning four months ago I lost my mother.firstly, she died intestate leaving behind two children(I and my brother) both over the age of 21 .to our shock we learned after the funeral while trying to reach all these insurance via the department of home affairs that she is married. the marriage was automatically in community of property.she died at 58 years old. the marriage was executed in 1990, meaning it has been 29 years.

now the spouse she married is a father to the older child who is 29 years old (equal to the marriage in years ) , but the child never knew him.It was later found that He never supported our late mother in any financial way whatsoever (no maintenance of the child, nothing whatsoever)in fact since they got married they never lived together at all, reason being the marriage was conducted because our late mother was pregnant and had a job as a teacher now during those times she would have lost her job if she did not get married , so they did, but never lived together or shared anything.

Now she dies leaving 2 houses behind and her pension fund, now according to intestate laws since she had no will. the surviving spouse will inherit half of his legal share, and is entitled to 50% of the remaining half.Automatically the houses are transferred to him. we don't know this person to us he is an intruder.my question is as the children how do we stop all of this process, as we feel that he is not entitled to anything.

can we contest the marriage ? or what do we do. we recently found out that he is extremely poor meaning he does not even have a house, not even a cent in his bank account, does not even work, but he is intent on taking our mothers estate.

Regards: Mokoena Lawrence