Our Team
Partners Gary Stirk and Matthew Yazbek, with a combined experience of 40 years of legal practice, head up this dynamic law firm established in 2014.
NOTICE:
STIRK YAZBEK ATTORNEYS confirm that Mr Mark Anthony Yazbek of Yazbeks Attorneys I J A Yazbek & Co. passed away on the 29'" June 2017.
STIRK YAZBEK ATTORNEYS, established on 1 March 2014, includes MR MATTHEW ANTHONY YAZBEK the only surviving "Yazbek" who is a continuing practising Attorney and Conveyancer in East London, Eastern Cape Province.
STIRK YAZBEK ATTORNEYS are totally separate from and not associated with Yazbeks Attorneys, its proprietors, employees or associates in all respects, and have not been so since 1 March 2014.
Services
As predominantly civil law practitioners, our professional staff will be happy to assist in, inter alia, Conveyancing transactions, Property Transfers and land sub-divisions, Debt Recovery, Drafting of Wills, Estates, Personal Injury Claims, Insolvency, Ante-nuptial contracts, Contracts, Commercial and Corporate Law and all general litigation matters.
Archived News & Publications
Contact Us
FOR A FREE CONSULTATION
+27 43 726 8310
18 Vincent Road,
Vincent,
East London
Areas of Practice
Civil and Criminal Litigation
Commercial Collections
Commercial and Corporate Law
Conveyancing
Debt Recovery
Family Law
Insolvency Law
Personal Injury Claims
Property Transfers
Trusts
Wills and Estate Planning


October 21, 2020
PROPERTY: DON’T PAY DOUBLE COMMISSION!
“… 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 14, 2020
HOME BUSINESSES - IS YOURS LEGAL?
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?
September 22, 2020
PROPERTY SUBSIDENCE
“…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 01, 2020
PROPERTY: GREEN SHOOTS, AGENT’S COMMISSION AND FIDELITY FUND CERTIFICATES
“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 18, 2020
BUYING A BUSINESS
“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 04, 2020
PROPERTY: DON’T PAY DOUBLE COMMISSION!
“… 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)
June 09, 2020
Credit life insurance
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.
May 12, 2020
Divorce in time Lockdown
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.
April 15, 2020
How to stop an Ex-Director from competing
“…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)
March 25, 2020
POPIA's one year deadline
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.
December 16, 2019
ALL COMPANIES: PREPARE FOR THE MANDATORY NEW CIPC COMPLIANCE CHECKLIST
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.
November 21, 2019
IT PAYS TO REPORT CRIME! FIRST OFFENDER’S 20 YEARS IN PRISON CONFIRMED FOR R4.9M FRAUD
“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)
October 17, 2019
SECURITY COMPLEXES AND FIBRE
“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)
July 18, 2019
AIRBNB OWNERS AND BUYERS – SHOULD YOU BE WORRIED ABOUT THE NEW REGULATIONS?
“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
EMPLOYERS: WHAT IS YOUR DUTY TO ACCOMMODATE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS?
“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 03, 2019
PROPERTY TRANSFERS AND TRUST ACCOUNT THEFT: A R720,000 WARNING
“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 17, 2019
EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK – CAN YOU DIFFERENTIATE WITHOUT UNFAIRLY DISCRIMINATING?
“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)
May 26, 2019
PROPERTY BUYERS: THERE’S A NEW DEDUCTION FROM INTEREST EARNED ON YOUR DEPOSIT
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.
April 02, 2019
YOUR DOG
“Ignorance is Bliss Dangerous” (Internet meme)