News from wessels + van zyl inc…
Found Your Dream Home? Read This Before You Sign…
Summer’s the perfect season to go house-hunting, with the sun shining, new properties on the market, and sales surging. Let’s talk about what you should do when you’ve found your dream home and the agent asks you to sign an offer to purchase. We’ll lead you through the process and share some guidelines to help make it as simple, quick, and risk-free as possible.
Lie on Your CV and You Could End Up Paying Your Salary Back
Lying to get a job can cost far more than the job itself. A former V&A Waterfront chief information officer was ordered to pay nearly R2.9 million in damages after the Labour Court found that she had misled the company into employing her and into paying for two consultants who had worked for her private business. Just over R1 million of the award represented her total remuneration. The rest covered the consultants’ fees.
Can Your Employer Cancel Your 13th Cheque?
A 13th cheque is not automatically guaranteed. But where it forms part of your employment contract, your employer cannot simply withdraw it or replace it with a performance-based bonus without your agreement. The Labour Court ordered an employer that had done so to pay 45 employees a 13th cheque for every year it had gone unpaid since 2021.
Your Neighbour’s Dog Bites You. Who Pays?
Dog owners can face strict liability when their animals attack someone, meaning the injured person does not necessarily have to prove that the owner was negligent. But that doesn’t make owners automatically liable for every bite. Here, the claimant put his head over his neighbour’s boundary wall after being asked more than once to leave the guard dogs alone. The High Court ruling makes for interesting reading…
Renegotiating After You’ve Signed: The Email That Ended a Property Sale
After their bond was withdrawn, the buyers were given time to arrange new finance. Instead, one of them emailed the conveyancer saying they would only apply for another bond after the seller repaired an alleged defect or agreed to reduce the price. The seller understood this to mean that the buyers would not proceed on the terms they had already accepted. She cancelled the sale, and the High Court agreed that she was entitled to do so. The buyers lost the sale and the money already paid and faced further financial consequences.
Was it Even His Signature? How to Overturn a Fraudulent Will
It’s unfortunately all too common a tale. Out of the blue, an older person, rendered vulnerable by age or illness, acquires a new “friend”. Before anyone in the family realises what’s going on, their loved one has died, and the fraudster claims to be sole heir in terms of a last-minute will. No surprise then that our courts must often determine whether a deceased person’s last will was tainted by incapacity, undue influence, fraud, or even forgery. The sad tale of a 90-year-old man who left behind two conflicting wills is a good example of how our courts approach these situations.