Poor Legal Service

Item: Joubert Scholtz Inc
Rating: 1
Author: Khongi M

This firm of attorneys is very poor in managing legal affairs of its clients. It is very poor in customer services as well. This firm was appointed by Absa Bank where my late mother made a will. My mother passed on in 2018 but up to this day her estate has not been finalised. The only thing we are getting , only when we contact them, is problems one after another which they are encountering either with SARS or someone. They are good in shifting the blame to others instead of just standing up and going to attend to their client's cases. The latest is that they are blaming the Deeds Office instead of them going there to sought whatever that is a challenge. I have never experienced such poor service from any firm of attorneys.

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Replies (1)

Joubert Scholtz Inc's replyOfficial

18 Aug 2021, 08:32

We herewith would like to take the opportunity to respond

Once the estate is received from ABSA we contact the clients and introduce ourselves, the same time all necessary documentation is sent to the Master of the High Court to obtain the Letter of Executorship to enable us to act on behalf of the deceased and to deal with the estate administration (assets and liabilities in the estate).
Our offices received instruction on 02 December 2019 for transfer of the fixed property
Once the Letter of Executorship is received from the Master of the High Court, we then request all the various of institutions to provide us with the certificate of balances on all bank accounts and policies (if applicable), collect proceeds etc, where upon our Debtor and Creditor adverti*****ts are also placed in the Beeld and Government Gazette for a period of 30 calendar days. Unfortunately, this is a time consuming exercise as not all institutions responds to our required documentation to proceed with the matter and sent to us immediately. Only once all documentation and information have been received then only are we able to finalise the liquidation and distribution account for approval by the Master of the High Court.
The Liquidation and Distribution Account was received on 28 May 2020 whereafter we could commence finalization.
From May 2020, we have record of trying to get all the beneficiaries to attend to signing all the necessary documents which was only attended to at the beginning of September 2020
We requested the original title deed from the family since inception of the finalisation and we hold record where on, 25 August 2020, a Mr. or Mrs. Rabii still undertook to provide us with the original title deed which we only received from the family on 15 January 2021. (please note that we have written record of all this communication and all beneficiaries were copied to the emails).
So in all essence, we could only attend to finalization from January 2021 due to delays caused by the family and not our offices.
On March 2021, we hold record of sending the matter off to the Deeds Office to procure the conditions of the Title Deed.
The matter was Lodged on 12 March 2021. On 28 March we received a note that the deed was rejected due to the fly-leaf conditions.
We attended to the deeds office to procure the correct Township fly-leaf conditions and effected the necessary amendments.
At this stage, we had to obtain new clearance figures which we app**** for, received confirmation of the admin fee and attended to payment of same. We only received the new clearance certificate on 01 June 2021.
On 07 June 2021, we relodged in the deeds office.
On 01 July 2021, we received confirmation that the matter was rejected due to the fly-leaf conditions.

Please take note: our offices inserted the exact conditions as requested by the previous examiner and these were rejected by another examiner (please note that we hold record of these and you are welcome to peruse same at our offices for verification). I am sure by this time you can comprehend that our offices was also at wits end.

Due to the long duration that this matter is in the Deeds offices, the clearance figures expired and we had to attempt for a third time, to procure the clearance figures.
On 26 July 2021, we had an appointment with a Senior examiner in the deeds offices to resolve the contradictory rejection notes.
This has been resolved and are we awaiting the new clearance certificate to re-lodge.

Joubert Scholtz Inc's reply18 Aug 2021, 08:32

Official

We herewith would like to take the opportunity to respond

Once the estate is received from ABSA we contact the clients and introduce ourselves, the same time all necessary documentation is sent to the Master of the High Court to obtain the Letter of Executorship to enable us to act on behalf of the deceased and to deal with the estate administration (assets and liabilities in the estate).
Our offices received instruction on 02 December 2019 for transfer of the fixed property
Once the Letter of Executorship is received from the Master of the High Court, we then request all the various of institutions to provide us with the certificate of balances on all bank accounts and policies (if applicable), collect proceeds etc, where upon our Debtor and Creditor adverti*****ts are also placed in the Beeld and Government Gazette for a period of 30 calendar days. Unfortunately, this is a time consuming exercise as not all institutions responds to our required documentation to proceed with the matter and sent to us immediately. Only once all documentation and information have been received then only are we able to finalise the liquidation and distribution account for approval by the Master of the High Court.
The Liquidation and Distribution Account was received on 28 May 2020 whereafter we could commence finalization.
From May 2020, we have record of trying to get all the beneficiaries to attend to signing all the necessary documents which was only attended to at the beginning of September 2020
We requested the original title deed from the family since inception of the finalisation and we hold record where on, 25 August 2020, a Mr. or Mrs. Rabii still undertook to provide us with the original title deed which we only received from the family on 15 January 2021. (please note that we have written record of all this communication and all beneficiaries were copied to the emails).
So in all essence, we could only attend to finalization from January 2021 due to delays caused by the family and not our offices.
On March 2021, we hold record of sending the matter off to the Deeds Office to procure the conditions of the Title Deed.
The matter was Lodged on 12 March 2021. On 28 March we received a note that the deed was rejected due to the fly-leaf conditions.
We attended to the deeds office to procure the correct Township fly-leaf conditions and effected the necessary amendments.
At this stage, we had to obtain new clearance figures which we app**** for, received confirmation of the admin fee and attended to payment of same. We only received the new clearance certificate on 01 June 2021.
On 07 June 2021, we relodged in the deeds office.
On 01 July 2021, we received confirmation that the matter was rejected due to the fly-leaf conditions.

Due to the long duration that this matter is in the Deeds offices, the clearance figures expired and we had to attempt for a third time, to procure the clearance figures.
On 26 July 2021, we had an appointment with a Senior examiner in the deeds offices to resolve the contradictory rejection notes.
This has been resolved and are we awaiting the new clearance certificate to re-lodge.