Stirk Yazbek

October 21, 2020

“… in certain circumstances the principal may be liable to pay commission to both agents where it is impossible to distinguish between the efforts of one agent and another in terms of causality or degrees of causation.” (Extract from judgment below)

October 15, 2020

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be” (Shakespeare)

October 14, 2020

The sharp upsurge in businesses operating remotely as a result of the pandemic lockdowns means a lot more people working from home - most presumably in low-profile home offices, but inevitably some in the form of full-on business activities from home. What effect is that having on the property market?

October 04, 2020

“Death knocks at all doors alike” (John Dunton 1692)

September 22, 2020

“…every landowner has a right to the lateral support and where subsidence or other destabilisation occurs, as a result of excavations on an adjacent property, the owner of the adjacent property will be liable in an action for damages irrespective of whether she was negligent or not.” (Extract from judgment below)

September 16, 2020

Breaking any of our lockdown laws can be an expensive business, risking heavy penalties.

September 07, 2020

“…it must be asked whether, but for the Covid-19 outbreak, the interruption or interference to the Applicant's business would have occurred when the Lockdown Regulations were promulgated” (extract from the judgment below)

September 01, 2020

“Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate. More money has been made in real estate than in all industrial investments combined. The wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate” (Andrew Carnegie, billionaire industrialist)

August 25, 2020

“It is only where the enforcement of a contractual term would be so unfair, unreasonable or unjust so as to be contrary to public policy that a court may refuse to enforce it” (extract from first  judgment below)

August 18, 2020

“The purpose of the legislature in enacting s 34(1) is to protect creditors by preventing traders who are in financial difficulty from disposing of their business assets to third parties who are not liable for the debts of the business, without due advertisement to all the creditors of the business.” (Extract from judgement below)

August 11, 2020

“O Wonder! ...O Brave New World” (Shakespeare)

August 04, 2020

“… in certain circumstances the principal may be liable to pay commission to both agents where it is impossible to distinguish between the efforts of one agent and another in terms of causality or degrees of causation.” (Extract from judgment below)

July 19, 2020

At long last the main provisions of POPIA (the Protection of Personal Information Act) have been gazetted, and they will commence on 1 July 2020. That means that the one year transitional period will expire on 30 June 2021.

July 12, 2020

​“A stitch in time saves nine” (wise old proverb)

July 06, 2020

“To sign a document means to authenticate that which stands for or is intended to represent the name of the person who is to authenticate” (quoted in the case below)

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June 23, 2020

“Preamble to the Domestic Violence Act: “To afford the victims of domestic violence the maximum protection from domestic abuse that the law can provide”

June 16, 2020

“Better safe than sorry” (wise old proverb)

June 09, 2020

If you are one of the many employees retrenched or put on short pay or unpaid leave as a result of the COVID-19 crisis and lockdown, you will be wondering how to cover the monthly instalments on your mortgage bond and other credit agreements. You have no doubt heard of the “payment holidays” banks are offering, but remember that although these are a lot better than losing your house, car etc, they are no free lunch. Interest and fees will still be building up.

June 03, 2020

“You can be a good neighbour only if you have good neighbours” (Howard E. Koch)

May 19, 2020

​Many factors can delay your property transfer, and all of them are likely to cost you.

May 12, 2020

The National Lockdown has thrown together many couples not used to spending “24/7” time in each other’s company. Relationships will have strengthened for many couples, but others will be struggling. The fears, anxieties and money worries now looming over us all certainly won’t haven’t helped.

May 10, 2020

“Death always comes without knocking” (Margaret Atwood)

May 03, 2020

The COVID-19 crisis has changed everything. Our personal lives have been upended and our businesses hit hard.

April 19, 2020

“In our law cohabitation does not have special legal consequences. Generally the proprietary consequences and rights flowing from a marriage are not available to unmarried couples, regardless of the length of their cohabitation” (extract from judgment below)

April 15, 2020

“…the default position is that an executive director or a senior employee may not carry on business activities which fall within the scope of his company’s business during the time when he serves as director or works as employee.  The default position however changes on resignation.” (Extract from judgment below)

April 12, 2020

​"The primary remedy therefore is an order for removal of the structure" (extract from the judgment below)

April 06, 2020

“The secret of crisis management is not good vs. bad, it’s preventing the bad from getting worse” (Andy Gilman)

March 25, 2020

Will the main provisions of POPIA (the Protection of Personal Information Act) really commence on 1 April 2020 as media reports suggest, or is this just another case of Crying Wolf? This time it seems it may be the real thing, with the Information Regulator having formally requested the President to declare the commencement date.

March 19, 2020

“Engage brain before hitting send” (Anon)

March 11, 2020

“To support the property market, the threshold for transfer duties is adjusted” (Finance Minister Tito Mboweni)

March 05, 2020

“It is unquestionable that an owner of land is not permitted to perform activities which contravene the restrictive title conditions or the zoning restrictions” (extract from judgment below)

February 20, 2020

​Traffic accidents, your fault or not, are traumatic affairs. Even minor dings come with their hassles – panel beaters, tow trucks, shock and recriminations, reams of paperwork, having to get a Crash Report Number for the insurers...

February 18, 2020

What's this item about? What makes it interesting? Write a catchy description to grab your audience's attention...

February 13, 2020

​"People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one" (Psychologist Leo J Burke)

February 05, 2020

"Close your eyes –

Landlord knocking

On the back door"

(Jack Kerouac; Northport Haiku)

January 23, 2020

“What’s the only thing divorce proves? Whose mother was right in the first place” (Anon)

January 15, 2020

Here’s another warning from our courts to make sure that all your contracts are properly drawn to reflect both accurately and fully what you have agreed to.

January 13, 2020

"Few of us ever test our powers of deduction, except when filling out an income tax form" (Laurence J. Peter of The Peter Principle)

January 07, 2020

You and your fantastic business idea can’t wait to chuck up the 9 to 5 job and launch your own new venture. 2020 here we come! But is this the right time to do it?

December 22, 2019

“He who hesitates is lost” (Wise old proverb)

December 16, 2019

​The CIPC (Companies and Intellectual Property Commission) has announced that its new “compliance checklist” requirement, voluntary until now, becomes mandatory for all companies and close corporations from 1 January 2020.

December 10, 2019

​“We're all going on a summer holiday…” (Cliff Richard)

December 04, 2019

"If you want to make your house easy to sell, make it easy to buy" (Anon)

November 21, 2019

“The scourge of white collar crime, especially fraud, is currently the order of the day in our country. Fraud is a cancer that is crippling our country from the core and takes away from the poorest of the poor” (extract from judgment below)

November 17, 2019

“… arbitrators should hesitate to interfere with employer’s decisions on whether probationary employees have attained the required performance standard, or with the standards themselves” (extract from judgment below)

November 10, 2019

​“And she's got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need” (P.G. Wodehouse)

November 03, 2019

​“If you don't like where you are, move. You are not a tree” (Jim Rohn)

October 27, 2019

​“Truth will out” (Shakespeare)

October 17, 2019

“Reliable electronic communications go beyond just benefiting the commercial interest of licensees to the detriment of ownership of property. The statute [Electronic Communications Act] is designed to avoid this no-winner conflict. What it seeks is to bring our country to the edge of social and economic development for rural and urban residents in a world in which technology is so obviously linked to progress.” (Extract from Constitutional Court decision quoted in the judgment below)

October 09, 2019

“The number of cases of dementia is estimated to almost triple by 2050” (World Health Organisation)

October 03, 2019

“…the Act is consumer-protection legislation designed to offer protection against incompetent builders and the construction of homes having structural defects” (extract from judgment below)

September 24, 2019

What's this item about? What makes it interesting? Write a catchy description to grab your audience's attention...

September 17, 2019

“…the employer has a duty to investigate all possible alternatives short of dismissal, and this duty accords with the onus of proving the fairness of the dismissal” (extract from judgment below)

September 10, 2019

“A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on” (Samuel Goldwyn)

September 01, 2019

“Where there’s a will, I want to be in it” (Anon)

August 14, 2019

“It is only once the court concludes that there is no defence to the claim for eviction and that it would be just and equitable to grant an eviction order that it is obliged to grant that order” (Extract from judgment below)

August 08, 2019

“A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it” (Bob Hope)

August 04, 2019

“Forewarned is Forearmed!”

(Wise old saying)

July 18, 2019

“While travel on our platform accounts for less than 1 in 8 visitors to South Africa, those guests boosted the economy by R8.7 billion and helped create 22,000 jobs last year alone” and “Regulation is a useful and necessary tool of good policy, but policy comes first. Sadly, the current wording of the draft Bill is very vague and unclear. It indicates the creation of specific regulatory approaches without any explanation of what they are trying to encourage or solve.” (Airbnb)

July 14, 2019

“The employer has a duty to reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious freedom unless it is impossible to do so without causing itself undue hardship. It is not enough that it may have a legitimate commercial rationale. The duty of reasonable accommodation imposed on the employer is one of modification or adjustment to a job or the working environment that will enable an employee operating under the constraining tenets of her religion to continue to participate or advance in employment” (Extract from judgment below)

July 07, 2019

“It is not intended for the Court to make a will for the deceased based on what his intentions may have been” (Quoted in the judgment below)

July 03, 2019

“The issue of whether a conveyancing attorney receives the money as the agent of the seller, or of the purchaser, or of both, or as trustee for both to await the event, is a somewhat vexed question … and each case must be considered in the light of its own facts and the particular contractual terms under which the conveyancer received payment” (Extract from judgment below)

June 19, 2019

“Untold Wealth: That which does not appear on income tax returns” (Anonymous)

June 17, 2019

“Prohibition of unfair discrimination: No person may unfairly discriminate, directly or indirectly, against an employee, in any employment policy or practice, on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, family responsibility, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, HIV status, conscience, belief, political opinion, culture, language, birth or on any other arbitrary ground” (from the Employment Equity Act)

June 13, 2019

“Family quarrels are bitter things. They don't go according to any rules” (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

June 09, 2019

“Some people use one-half their ingenuity to get into debt, and the other half to avoid paying it” (George Prentice, newspaper editor and author)

June 02, 2019

You put your property on the market and an acceptable but not-perfect offer comes in. On the “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” principle you want to accept the offer even though it’s not ideal.

May 26, 2019

When you buy property, the sale agreement often provides for you to pay a deposit (normally 10% of the sale price) to the conveyancer (the attorney transferring the property into your name), to be kept in trust until transfer.

May 22, 2019

“In short, it [a Fidelity Fund Certificate] is a licence to practice without which you cannot practice.” (Extract from judgment below)

May 16, 2019

“An income tax form is like a laundry list - either way you lose your shirt” (Comedian Fred Allen)

May 12, 2019

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch” (Economist Milton Friedman)

May 05, 2019

“When the [property owners] chose to purchase property within the estate and become members of the Association, they agreed to be bound by its rules” (extract from judgment below)

April 21, 2019

The monetary jurisdiction of Small Claims Courts has been increased from R15,000 to R20,000 from 1 April 2019. 

April 15, 2019

“The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we all believe that we are above-average drivers” (humourist Dave Barry) 

April 09, 2019

“You can be a good neighbour only if you have good neighbours” (Howard Koch, “Invasion from Mars” author)

April 02, 2019

“Ignorance is Bliss Dangerous” (Internet meme)