Master’s Office Task Team meets with Chief Master

Stakeholders in the fiduciary industry formed a task team to liaise on an industry-wide basis with the Chief Master.

The first planned quarterly meeting with the Chief Master was held on 22 February 2022. The online meeting was attended by FISA CEO Louis van Vuren.

Matters raised with the Chief Master by FISA were the following:

• A request for a consistent approach across Master’s Offices to a fast track for deceased estate matters where there are no minors, no limited rights, and no estate duty involved. The Chief Master indicated that a working group to streamline deceased estate processes has been formed under the leadership of the Master of the High Court: Bloemfontein, Adv Jannie du Plessis.
• It was pointed out to the Chief Master that there is a general lack of a consistent approach between the different Masters regarding processes and technical matters. The Chief Master again referred to the working groups that were set up within the Master’s Offices to streamline processes.
• A request for more transparency with regard to the current backlog in the different Master’s Offices. It was suggested to the Chief Master that the regular publication of the statistics regarding the backlog would go a long way towards managing expectations and assisting industry players to plan their interactions with the relevant Master’s Offices. The suggestion was received very positively.