Conveyancing and the property transfer process

Most people are surprised to learn a single transaction can involve three separate attorneys, each paid separately and each doing a different job.

By convention in South Africa the seller nominates the transferring attorney, because the seller is the party giving transfer. The buyer's bank appoints the bond attorney from its own panel, and the seller's bank appoints the cancellation attorney from its panel. Neither of those is your choice.

Because you nominate the transferring attorney, you can shop around, including among the conveyancing attorneys on Privately. Conveyancing fees follow the LSSA guideline scale, but that scale is a guideline and not a tariff: fees are negotiable, unlike transfer duty, which SARS sets and no attorney can discount. Selling privately does not change this. If anything it makes it easier, since no agent is steering you towards a firm they have a relationship with.

• Offer accepted. A written, signed agreement of sale exists. Any suspensive conditions (bond approval, sale of the buyer's own home) start running.
• Bond approval. The buyer applies and the bank issues a grant. Until this happens, most sales are conditional and can still fall away.
• Instruction to the conveyancer. The transferring attorney opens the file, requests the title deed and bond cancellation figures, and does FICA on both parties.
• Documents signed. Seller and buyer each attend to sign transfer documents. The buyer pays the transfer costs and duty at this stage.
• Clearance figures. The municipality issues rates figures and, for sectional title, the body corporate issues a levy clearance certificate. This is the slowest stage and the one you have least control over.
• Transfer duty receipt. The attorney pays SARS and obtains the receipt.
• Lodgement. The three attorneys lodge together at the Deeds Office. Documents are examined over several working days.
• Registration. Ownership passes, the bond is registered, the seller's bond is cancelled and the proceeds are paid out, usually within a day or two of registration.

Two to three months is normal, and the usual culprits are administrative rather than legal.

• Rates clearance. Municipal turnaround varies enormously by council and can take six weeks on its own.
• Levy clearance. A body corporate or HOA with a part-time managing agent can be slow, and a disputed levy account stops everything.
• Outstanding compliance certificates. A failed electrical inspection discovered late adds however long the repairs take.
• Bond approval delays. Incomplete affordability documentation from the buyer is the most common cause.
• Deeds Office queries. A document lodged with an error is rejected and must be re-lodged, typically adding a week or more.
• Deceased estates, divorce or trusts on the title. These need additional authority documents and always take longer.

On registration, not on signature. This is the single most important thing for a seller to plan around: from the day you accept an offer, expect roughly two to three months before the money reaches your account.

At registration the conveyancer settles your outstanding bond, pays the cancellation attorney, pays the agent's commission if there is an agent, and pays you the balance. If you are buying and selling simultaneously, the two transfers usually need to register on the same day, which is arranged between the attorneys and is worth raising early.

• Have a conveyancer review the offer to purchase before you sign it.
• Give your bank 90 days' notice of bond cancellation as soon as you decide to sell: late notice can cost up to three months' interest.
• Order your rates clearance figures as early as the attorney will allow.
• Get your compliance certificates done before listing, not after accepting.
• Ask the conveyancer for a written fee estimate up front, and compare two firms.
• Keep the buyer informed. In an agent sale the agent chases the transfer; in a private sale that is your job, and a transfer nobody is chasing goes slowly.