Tax- and other legislation often change.  Findings by the court in connection with estates and wills result in changes and adaptations by the Law.

One important change taking effect soon, deals with the settling of estate duty.  Until recently each person paid estate duty if the nett worth of his/her estate exceeds R3.5 million. The recent change implies that in the case where the surviving spouse is the only heir, the estate of the surviving spouse must exceed R7 million at the time of  his/her death, before estate duty will be payable.

A further important change is the so-called one year usufruct, which will be falling away.  According to the scheme a person bequeaths his/her estate to a trust or to his/her children with usufruct to the surviving spouse.  Usufruct won't fall away at the death of the surviving spouse, but will only be cancelled a year after the death of the surviving spouse.  This resulted in huge savings in estate duty.

The most important consideration during the drawing of a will is still the validity and feasibility thereof, as well as the appointment of an executor.

People should have an understanding of their wills and the implications it entails.  It still happens far too often that wills are unexecutable, because proper consideration weren't given to the contents, or because important legal principles were excluded.

When appointing an executor, one should ensure that the executor is a person or a competent authority, who knows your circumstances and the composition of your assets.  Every person should be in agreement with their executor regarding executor's fees, seeing that financial establishments will charge the maximum executors fee, 3.5% plus VAT, not negotiable, if such an agreement doesn't exist.

When appointing a financial establishment as executor, keep in mind that you will most likely end up with a person living somewhere in the city who will be winding up your estate, who most likely have no knowledge of the culture, background or the ways of the cultural group you belong to.