Family Law

Article courtesy of Law Dot News | Family Law Spousal Maintenance After Divorce and the “Clean Break” Principle “The clean break principle after divorce has found resonance with our courts for many years.  The aim of this principle is to ensure that the parties become financially independent of each other as soon as possible after divorce.” (Extract from judgment below)Read more

“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it” (John Steinbeck) One of the most important decisions you must make before you marry is what “marital regime” (“matrimonial property system”) you want to apply to your marriage. To recap, you have three choices – Marry in community of property: This is the default

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Expectant parents who lose a pregnancy before 26 weeks (the age set by the Births and Deaths Registration Act (BADRA) in its definition of “still-born”) have until now had no right to bury their foetus, which had to be incinerated as “medical waste”. That has changed with a recent High Court order declaring the relevant provisions of BADRA unconstitutional. That

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Article courtesy of Law Dot News – Family Law Divorce Who Gets the House on Divorce? “I am a marvellous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I keep his house” (seven-times-divorced actress Zsa Zsa Gabor) Historically 44% of South African marriages have ended in divorce, and there has reportedly been a 20% surge in new divorce applications since lockdown.Read more

“…a third party is expected to do more than rely upon a bold assurance by another party regarding his or her marital status” (quoted in judgment below) If you are taking advantage of our current low interest rates and reduced selling prices to buy a property, make sure that you establish the seller’s marital status with something more than what

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Article courtesy of Law Dot News Life Partners – You Still Need a Will and a Cohabitation Agreement! A recent High Court decision has been widely viewed as an important victory for the rights of unmarried opposite-sex life partners. Until now, if one such partner died intestate (without making a will), the other could not inherit on the same basisRead more

“An inability on the part of the parents to maintain a child must be established before a grandparent will be legally liable to do so” (extract from judgment below) One wonders how many grandparents are aware of (let alone plan for) the possibility that they may have a legal duty to support their grandchildren in certain circumstances. It could be

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“Compliance with court orders is always important. There is a particular scourge in this country of spouses, particularly husbands, failing to pay judicially ordered maintenance” (extract from second judgment below) Getting money out of serial maintenance defaulters is a notoriously difficult exercise, but even the most recalcitrant and cunning dodger will baulk at the prospect of being locked up for

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“Neither a borrower nor a lender be” (Shakespeare) This is a case of a “love relationship” gone wrong but the principles of vehicle ownership apply to any situation in which you lend a motor vehicle to anyone else. A widely-held misconception is that if you are the registered owner of a car, it is yours and you are the owner.

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“Preamble to the Domestic Violence Act: “To afford the victims of domestic violence the maximum protection from domestic abuse that the law can provide” There is great concern that the COVID-19 crisis, particularly the mandatory “stay at home” lockdown phase, will see both an increase in the levels of domestic violence, and a decrease in the ability of victims to

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