Asked by Spiderman on 04-04-2021 11:14:29
Question posted in the Property Law category relating to Western Cape
Good day,
I have sold a property. A brokerage firm RE/MAX handled the property sale and I appointed a conveyancing attorney to deal with the transfer of the property. the buyer paid the purchase price and everything went as planned such as the Deeds of Sale was received and the buyer could therefore move onto the property..
The big problem. The conveyancing attorney stole the proceeds of the purchasing price and I am therefore left without any proceeds from the sale. I have contacted the legal practitioner's fidelity fund and submitted my affidavit with the necessary proofs of payments by the buyer into the trust account of the attorney etc.
The Fidelity Fund has rejected my case based on the fact that, there was no entrustment as required by section 26(a) of the Attorneys act.
Now the brokerage firm drew up the agreement of sale. The Fidelity Fund points to paragraph 20 of the agreement of sale which does not state entrustment as is required.
Paragraph 20 only states that a specified amount will be paid into the account of the conveyancing attorney and another amount will be paid on another date into the conveyancing attorney's account.
I will attach the agreement of sale if I can.
I would like to know if I can do something about this in order to recover my loss.
Thank you.
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