Those in the legal fraternity continued to speak out this week about their frustrations in dealing with the inefficiencies of the Master’s Office.
This comes after poor service delivery by the Master’s Office across the country was recently laid bare before Parliament with the Law Society of South Africa (LSSA) calling on the national legislature to intervene as a matter of urgency.
LSSA national deputy chairperson for deceased estate’s committee and Cape Town attorney, Ceris Field, said they are relieved that the matter has come under the spotlight but now offices need to put shoulder to the wheel to ensure their efficiency.
Speaking about apparent issues experienced at the Western Cape Master’s Office, Field, a practising attorney with experience of more than 35 years and specialising in estates for 25 years, said when the office fails them, they were unable to get their jobs done.
“As committee members, we regularly get colleagues who complain to us. The problems in the Master’s Office are experienced throughout the country and have been going on for a number of years, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. We have tried to get meetings with people who can help us on a parliamentary level but nothing ever happened.
“This was until (LSSA national chairperson) Hussan Goga got the opportunity to appear before the parliamentary portfolio committee where he highlighted a number of our challenges. (At the committee meeting) the acting chief master ...said the turnaround times have been reduced from 21 days to 14 days and that’s when I jumped in and said we meet our targets 75% of the time but I have not received a letter of executorship for years within 21 days, I wait on it for six months,” said Field.
Field detailed how candidate attorneys would have to queue at the Western Cape Master’s Office before 8am on the three days allocated to conveyancers attorneys as the office closes at 1pm.
Trying to circumvent further delays, candidate attorneys are sent to queue and do follow-ups on a number of cases with Field adding that physical piles of documents and folders are stored at the office as these are not backed up on computer systems which also run the risk of being misplaced or lost entirely.
General secretary for the Black Conveyancers Association, Ashraf Parker, said the report issued to Parliament highlights challenges in all provinces.
“Even obtaining documents has become quite a challenge,” he said.
Cape Times