Acts Online
GT Shield

Deeds Registries Act, 1937 (Act No. 47 of 1937)

Chapter II : Registration

General Provisions

14. Deeds to follow sequence of their relative causes

 

(1) Save as otherwise provided in this Act or in any other law or as directed by the court
(a) transfers of land and cessions of real rights therein shall follow the sequence of the successive transactions in pursuance of which they are made, and if made in pursuance of testamentary disposition or intestate succession they shall follow the sequence in which the right to ownership or other real right in the land accrued to the persons successively becoming vested with such right;
(b) it shall not be lawful to depart from any such sequence in recording in any deeds registry any change in the ownership in such land or of such real right: Provided that—
(i) if the property has passed in terms of a will or through intestate succession from a deceased person to his descendants, and one or other of these descendants has died a minor and intestate and no executor has been appointed in his estate, transfer or cession of the property which has vested in that descendant may be passed by the executor in the estate of the deceased person direct to the heirs ab intestato of the descendant;
(ii) if the registrar is satisfied that the value of the immovable property which has vested in any heir or legatee in terms of a will or through intestate succession would be equalled or exceeded by the costs involved in transferring or ceding it to the heir or legatee, and the heir or legatee has sold the property, transfer or cession thereof may, with the consent in writing of the heir or legatee, be passed by the executor in the estate of the deceased person direct to the purchaser;
(iii) if in the administration of the estate of a deceased person (including a fiduciary) any redistribution of the whole or any portion of the assets in such estate takes place among the heirs and legatees (including ascertained fideicommissary heirs and legatees) of the deceased, or between such heirs and legatees and the surviving spouse, the executor or trustee of such estate may transfer the land or cede the real rights therein direct to the persons entitled thereto in terms of such redistribution;

[Section 14(1)(b)(iii) substituted by section 6 of Act No. 14 of 1993]

(iv) in a redistribution mentioned in proviso (iii) it shall be lawful to introduce movable property not forming part of the estate for the purpose of equalizing the division;
(v) the provisions of proviso (iii) shall apply mutatis mutandis with reference to a redistribution of assets of the joint estate of spouses who were married in community of property and have been divorced or judicially separated, and with reference to a redistribution of assets of a partnership on dissolution of the partnership;
(vi) if a fiduciary interest in land or in a real right terminates before transfer of the land or cession of the real right has been registered in favour of the fiduciary, it shall be competent to transfer the land or cede the real right direct to the fideicommissary;
(vii) if the right of any person to claim transfer of such land or cession of such real right from any other person has been vested in any third person in terms of any judgment or order of any court (including a magistrate's court), or in terms of a sale in execution held pursuant to any such judgment or order, transfer of such land or cession of such real right may be passed direct to such third person by the person against whom such right was exercisable.

[Section 14(1)(b)(vii) substituted by section 6 of Act No. 14 of 1993]

[Section 14(1)(b) substituted by section 6 of Act No. 87 of 1965]

 

(2) In any transfer or cession in terms of any proviso to subsection (1)(b), there shall be paid the transfer duty which would have been payable had the property concerned been transferred or ceded to each person successively becoming entitled thereto.

[Section 14(2) substituted by section 6 of Act No. 14 of 1993]