Costs

Drafting Contract and Special Power of Attorney, attending to execution before Notary Public and Conveyancer’s fee for registration of Contract in the Cape Town Deeds Registry - R3900

Postage & Petties - R110

Deeds office fee - R445

TOTAL - R4455

Please note

• The above price is applicable to online submissions only and does not include consultation with an attorney.

• The above amounts exclude costs for any special provisions.

• Deeds Office fees may be increased from time to time by the Registrar of Deeds and our prices are subject to change without prior notice.

In Community of Property

If you and your fiancé do not sign a contract before marriage, you will be deemed to be married In Community of Property. This means that all assets and liabilities of either spouse will automatically become part of the joint estate upon marriage.

The potential consequences include the following:

• Should one spouse conduct his/her financial affairs recklessly, it will adversely affect the other spouse.

• All assets in the joint estate may become susceptible to the claims of creditors of both spouses and little can be done to afford adequate protection against this.

• For certain contractual obligations, such as suretyships and finance agreements, the consent of the other spouse is required.

• As joint owners of all property in the estate, both spouses will share equal rights of ownership in each other’s assets.

Out of Community of Property

Should you wish to marry Out of Community of Property, you and your fiancé will need to enter into an Antenuptial Contract or Pre-Civil Union Contract prior to marriage.

In terms of the contract, you and your fiancé would agree that there shall be no community of property and no community of profit and loss during the subsistence of the marriage.

• Neither spouse shall be liable for the debts or obligations of the other by virtue of the marriage.

• Each spouse is entitled to retain his/her separate property with the freedom to deal with such property as he/she wishes.

• Should either spouse be sequestrated, the property of the other is protected from the insolvent’s creditors (subject to the provisions of Section 21 of the Insolvency Act).

With Application of the Accrual System

Similarly, neither party shall be liable for any debt or obligation incurred by the other before or during the subsistence of their intended marriage.

With the application of the accrual system, both spouses would retain separate estates during the subsistence of the marriage and they would not necessarily share in each other’s profits or losses during the marriage. It is only upon dissolution of the marriage, whether by death or divorce, that the parties would be entitled to an accrual claim.

The ‘accrual’ is the extent to which each spouse has increased his/her respective estate by the time of dissolution of the marriage. The accrual of the estate of each spouse is the amount by which the value of his/her estate at the dissolution of the marriage exceeds the value thereof at the date of marriage.

The estate of the spouse that shows smaller growth during the marriage has a claim against the estate of the spouse that shows larger growth, for half of the difference. The result of calculating the accrual is that the spouses would ultimately share equally in the total accrual of both parties.

Without Application of the Accrual System

Exclusion of the accrual system means that there will be no sharing of profit or loss by the spouses at any time.

Unless purchased jointly, all assets are owned completely separately, including those brought into the marriage and those acquired during the marriage.

Neither party shall be liable for any debt or obligation incurred by the other before or during the subsistence of their intended marriage.

As there is no sharing, neither spouse has any claim against the assets of the other upon death or divorce by virtue of the antenuptial contract.