Tracking of deceased estates at Capital Legacy

The secret is out why Capital Legacy is quicker than the rest of the industry with the administration of Estates.

But we are going to keep you in suspense for a just a couple of paragraphs before we let the cat out of the bag. We need to do a quick scene-setter before telling you how we do it. After all, Aristoteles said every story needs to have a beginning, a middle part, and an end.

But, to shake Aristoteles’s definition around a bit, let us start at the end of a person’s life, which is also the beginning of a Deceased Estate.

When a person passes away, his/her death is reported to the Master of the High Court’s office. The person’s assets and liabilities form part of his/her Estate.

The Master of the High Court then appoints an Executor to see to the settlement of the Deceased Estate. The purpose of this process is to ensure an orderly winding up of the financial affairs of the deceased, and the protection of the financial interests of the heirs.

At death the Estate of the deceased person is frozen, and no one may withdraw funds from the deceased’s bank accounts or deal with any of the Estate assets without the necessary permission from the Master of the High Court. If the deceased was married in community of property, the joint Estate is frozen. This situation often creates hardship for the surviving spouse, especially where the bank accounts were all in the name of the joint Estate or in the name of the deceased.

We all know the longer it takes to wind up an Estate the more anxious family members get, and everybody wants to know how far the process is.

Capital Legacy’s secret

When Capital Legacy is appointed as the Executor of an Estate, we go to the Master’s offices countrywide on a daily basis to check on the progress of all the Estates we administer. Our Designated Masters’ liaisons or correspondents go to the examiners at the Master’s offices which print out and supply them with a query sheet on each Estate which Capital Legacy handles.

The query sheet indicates how up to date the process is and which information is lacking and/or what steps need to be taken.

Capital Legacy then supply the additional information and its Master’s liaisons provide the examiner with the necessary information.

The secret is thus good old foot slogging and speaking to the examiners at the Master’s office on a daily basis. This is how we at Capital Legacy know exactly how far in the process the Estates are that we take care of.

Capital Legacy has its own panel of conveyancing attorneys and tax practitioners which help to speed up the progress of administering an Estate.

A practical example of how they help to speed up the process is the following: Let us suppose a businessman passes away without having a full-time accountant at his business. For his Estate to be speedily and efficiently wound up, it is essential to know how much his business is/was worth, if there were loan accounts in favour of or against the Estate, or if he signed any suretyship agreements. Capital Legacy speeds the process up by assisting with such valuations.

When we have dealt with the assets and liabilities, we then pay the heirs/legatees their allotted share.

How long should winding up an Estate take, you may ask? Well, that would depend on how many and different types of assets there are in the Estate. Another factor which could influence the winding up of an Estate is if the Estate holds assets in other countries and intellectual rights.

At Capital Legacy, we wind up Estates on average 50% faster than the industry average.

And there you have it: Our secret is literally going the extra mile (well, actually thousands of them yearly) for our clients.