Chris Fick & Associates

Trustees: Your New Duty to Report Beneficial Owners

“National Treasury, therefore, expects that if South Africa continues to make significant improvements in effectiveness and swiftly exits grey listing, it will have a limited impact on financial stability and costs of doing business with South Africa, particularly if South Africa moves speedily to get out of grey listing.” (National Treasury) South Africa’s grey listing […]

Trustees at war: The removal remedy and its limits

“Animosity and difference of opinion are not sufficient to have a trustee removed from office and/or for the majority of trustees to unilaterally force another to vacate his/her office…” (Extract from judgment below) When family infighting impacts a family trust, an early casualty is often the relationship between the appointed trustees and beneficiaries, and/or between […]

Can I have pets in a residential complex?

“I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home which answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog which growls every morning, a parrot which swears all afternoon, and a cat that comes home late at night” (Marie Corelli, English novelist) Residential complexes and estates are becoming […]

Trusts: New directive on independent trustees

If you plan to form a trust, you need to know about a new directive from the Chief Master of the High Court to all Master’s Offices in the country. The directive applies to all new trusts (those “registered for the first time”) by the Master. Following a series of court cases in which the […]

ATTACKING A TRUST (AND DEFENDING IT)

“Invincibility lies in the defence; the possibility of victory in the attack” (Sun Tzu)  It’s an all-too-common scenario.  When you try to recover your money from a debtor, you find that all his/her assets (including the luxury home, holiday house and ocean-going yacht) are held by a family or business trust. Creditors: Follow the Assets […]