Unsatisfied client, unprofessional service

Dear Miss Smuts  We are sorry to hear about your dissatisfaction with our service. As an award-winning firm, we always strive to ensure transactions are ready ahead of time and register as planned. Unfortunately, there were various factors that contributed to the delay in the registration of your apartment.  We were notified very late in the transaction that the original title deed and notarial deed could not be located by the owner, which meant we had to follow additional procedures to replace the deeds. Should this not have been the case, your transfer would have been ready for lodgement in the deeds office by the 5th of July 2021. All the remaining transfer documents were ready for lodgement by this time as initially estimated.  Due to the procedure for the replacements of the deeds and the earliest publication dates available at Media24 during that time, we had to wait an additional 14 days for the objection period to lapse, as well as draft replacement copies of the deeds from the deeds office. The objection period lapsed on 21 July 2021, and we received the draft replacement copies back from the deeds office on 02 August 2021. We lodged your transaction in the deeds office the very next day on 03 August 2021.  (Please bear in mind that due to Covid restrictions the deeds office was working at 30% capacity and on a rotational basis since 5 July 2021, which lead to a turnaround time of 4 – 5 weeks from date of lodgement to registration. This was communicated to you on the 5th of July in our weekly progress report.)  Unfortunately, the transfer was rejected in the deeds office on 09 September 2021, due to a deeds office examiner requesting additional historic information that they wanted to be published in the Media24 adverti*****t. This was the first instance where the deeds office requested such additional information, and in fact we had just successfully registered a similar replacement of deed application for another client on 20 August 2021 without these additional requirements. Opinions of each examiners vary; however, we comp**** with the examiners requirements and advised the seller that we will cover the costs of the amended publications. The next available publication date was 16 September 2021, which objection period lapsed on 30 September 2021. Again, we lodged the transfer in the deeds office the very next day on 01 October 2021.  The seller accommodated you and confirmed in writing that you do not have to pay any further occupational rent as of 01 October 2021 until date of registration.  We were notified on 11 October 2021 that the transfer passed examination in the deeds office, and came up on prep for registration; however, the Notarial transfer document for the transfer of the parking bay went missing in the deeds office. We submitted a written request to the deeds office to locate the missing documents internally and exclaimed that this is a priority since the clearance certificates from the municipal council (City of Cape Town) will expire on 17 October 2021 and we have to register before this date to avoid any further delays. In the meantime, we did request extended clearances from the municipality on 13 October 2021; however, the council advised that they are not attending to extended applications at this time and we must submit new applications for clearance, which we did immediately.  On 15 October 2021 the City of Cape Town issued a formal notice stating that they are experiencing technical difficulties and delays with the issuing of rates clearance certificates. (Again, this was communicated with you in our weekly progress reports.)  On 25 October 2021, the deeds office concluded their internal investigation relating to the documents that went missing in their office and advised that the documents could not be located, and they granted us permission to reconstruct the missing set of documents and to apply for expedition of the registration process. We reconstructed the missing documents same day and were only waiting on the new rates clearance certificates from the municipal council. The clearances were issued on 03 November 2021 and submitted to the deeds office same day together with our application to expedite the registration process.  The application to expedite was approved by the deeds office on 04 November 2021, and the transfer was formally relodged on 05 November 2021. The deeds came up on prep for registration on 10 November 2021 and we successfully registered the property into your name the next business day on 11 November 2021.  We understand and relate to your frustration, but we assure you of our best intentions throughout this transaction. We worked relentlessly to finalize this matter and communicated all of the above with you every step of the way, and provided you with regular weekly updates throughout the course of your transaction.  We wish you all the best and many happy years in your new home.