BREACH OF CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS

I am writing this review, in the hope that there is one person willing to make an asserted effort to resolve the matter. It is a long line of events, so please read to the end.

The age old solution for big companies, when they are at fault where an individual is concerned, is to wear them out, in the hope that the individual will give up, or eventually run out of money to fight for what is right.

In April 2018 we have signed an Offer to purchase on a property out of a deceased estate. Nedbank – Nedgroup is the executor of this estate. The matter went on to the Master of the High court to endorse. This was done in October 2018, after many delays and queries on our part.

By law, the offer to purchase stipulate that the seller, which in this case is the Nedbank/Nedgroup Executor , should produce approved building plans, electrical compliance certificate, amongst other, within 30 days of acceptance of the Offer to Purchase. This was accepted on behalf of the estate, by the Master of the High court in October 2018. In February 2019, paperwork was sent off to the Deeds office, as per below email.

In the meantime, the property was not looked after, and other issues arose, which had to be taken care of.

As per communication from the conveyancing attorneys, we arranged to move in on 13 March 2019.

In the week of 11 March, everything came to a halt. We were notified only then that the paperwork was withdrawn from the Deeds office, after we have paid all money to the conveyancing attorneys, the bond attorneys as well as the deposit. Our house was sold, and we had to move out, on the basis of the above email, from Ms Ncala, the conveyancing attorney. We had nowhere to go. Upon contacting Ms Ncala, she informed me that she shouldn’t even be speaking with either myself or my husband, as she is not our lawyer, she is on behalf of the seller only – which is not the case – Ms Ncala was in fact supposed to be the unbiased conveyancing attorney. As far as I know, this is an offense on her part, since she is supposed to be unbiased in representing both seller and purchaser.

It is now September 2019, and after a number of issues from March, to date, we have since employed our own legal counsel. The conveyancing attorneys went to the master of the high court to withdraw consent to sell – which is *******, by law. Building plans were in fact not obtained, after the abovementioned email from Ms Ncala, confirming that these were attended to.

Our lawyer has been back and forth, with little, or no communication from the estates lawyer, no feedback on letters, emails or other communication, within the given time. The estate hasn’t tried to remedy the breach of contract and we see no way forward other than to cancel the contract, based on breach by the seller/executor. We have sent the notification of cancellation, on the basis of the estate’s breach of contractual obligations.

We have received notice from the Estate/Executor’s lawyers, that we are being penalised to pay the estate agents commission as well as charging us for wasted expenditure. They are in breach of contract, and we can’t see how it should be at our cost, if the estate/Nedbank/Nedgroup is in breach and has been in breach since October 2018. During this whole process, the Executor has left many issues to the heirs of the estate to resolve, where Nedgroup was appointed to deal with all issues related to the sale of this property. The conveyancing attorneys failed to do their part in seeing this transaction through, not meeting all contractual obligations. We have had money paid back to us from the bond attorney’s, who deducted monies for wasted expenditure, for this matter, in which we are not at fault.

We cannot, financially afford to give up, to lose all this money, nor to spend more money to resolve this. Nedgroup/Nedbank has to remedy the matter urgently, without us having to take further legal action, to get us back to a position where we were before this situation started.