Poor service and lost documents

My mother died on the 20th of January 2017. Unfortunately, she named Sanlam as the executor to her estate. Perhaps I should mention that my mother at the time of her passing was a pensioner who lived of a pension received from her last employer and interest earned on a few policies mainly kept by Sanlam. Except for 50% of a property we bought together she had no other fixed assets that had to be sold. Surely one of the easiest estates to finalise.

One of the things Sanlam should have done was to transfer my mothers 50% of the property onto my name. Early 2018 this was done and the transport deed was delivered to the Sanlam Head Office on the 4th of May 2018. From this date I have on numerous occasions requested the copy of the original transport deed as there was no reason why this document could not be handed to me considering that all outstanding moneys were paid. Needless to say that all attempts to obtain this document to date was unsuccessful. On the 20th of November 2019 I finally received a mail from a Sanlam employee who informed me that they lost the original transport deeds documentation??? I was also later informed that an application has been made for a duplicate transport deed.

Between the 20th of November 2020 and the 20th of March 2020 no word has been received from Sanlam. I assume being the legal owner of the property I would have had to give permission for a duplicate deed application and to date I was not asked or gave such permission. On the 20th of March 2020 I logged a complaint on the Sanlam web site. I merely requested that the manager of the Sanlam Trust Estate Department phone me as I wanted to discuss this issue with him / her. A day or two later I received a call from the junior consultant assigned to my mother’s estate who merely informed me that they have app**** for a duplicate deed. Not really what I requested.

Let’s see if posting this message on an open forum will result in this Sanlam Manager regarding his / her customer as more important than his position. Or perhaps we should communicate via this forum for all to see?

Needless to say I changed my and all my direct family members testaments as to ensure that Sanlam is not named as the executor. For the following reasons I would suggest others do this as well:

1. As previously mentioned, I am of the opinion that my mother’s estate should have been one of the easier estates to finalise. More than three (3) years later Sanlam could not get this right. In November 2017 I received an e-mail from my mother’s SANLAM financial advisor in which he stated that the estate should be close to being finalised???;

2. I understand wrapping up estates takes time and for this reason I surely did not expect weekly or monthly feedback on progress made. Sanlam’s policy though it would appear is that if the customer does not ask or send an angry mail no feedback will be given. If I did not enquire in November 2019 Sanlam probably still would not have known that they lost the deeds document?;

3. From day one I got the impression that the consultant assigned to my mother’s estate was just incapable of understanding basic principles. A typical example was that I already owned 50% of the property in question and that the other 50% merely had to be transferred to my name. I numerous times had to explain this only to find that according to the transfer attorney appointed the original deed issued and lost by Sanlam was incorrectly issued as the deed states that I still own 50% of the property. The person / entity owning the other 50% is not known as Sanlam lost the deed document;

4. In my case I do not think Sanlam cared much about the clients (Me) interest. From late 2017, I in numerous e-mails raised concerns about how the consultant dealt with certain issues as in my opinion she just did what she wanted and not what was best for me. It was only when I had to sign transfer document at the attorney’s office that I was informed of the numerous options that could have been exercised with regards to the property transfer which for a number of reasons would have been better for me.