When to reject

This article is a concentrated endeavour by the author to provide basic guidelines for both seasoned and rookie examiners who perform second level examination on when to reject or query a deed.

Let us firstly demystify some second level jargon before we delve into the skein of concepts surrounding second examination:

Note: means a simple remark for the conveyancer's attention to a simple error that can be fixed by him in the deeds office without having to withdrew the deed to his offices.

Query: means a material remark  by an examiner that invariably leads to a rejection of a deed if that fault is not remedied.

Rejection: means the process of rasing a query and marking a queried deed with an "R" (Queried) endorsement.  These deeds are tossed back into the conveyancer's locker in the preparation room.

Pigeon-hole: a small locker for deeds allocated per conveyancer over a query.

Counter-query:  a reply or a counter-note by a conveyancer over a query.

Passing:  The process of approving deeds and letting them go through the system by marking them with a "passed" stamp so they may be processed into execution.

Material faults in deeds may emanate from various areas of Deeds Registration Law.  However, as already stated above, an endeavour is only made to scale the topic down to queries.  The following are notorious areas from which different queries emanate, namely:

• Unregistered conveyancer/preparer
• Violation of an interdict
• Preparation clause unsigned
• Lack of capacity with regard to the person transacting
• Statutory infringements e.g. failure to dispose of an active bond on transfer and failure of surviving spouse to join executor in a deceased joint estate transaction.
• Eligibility of a particular property (tenure concerns) to be dealt with in a particulary manner of land use e.g. sectional or township settlement
• Inserviceability of a holding title
• Wrong format/form of a deed (prescribed forms are in the regulations of the Deeds Act)
• Broken batching/linking
• Non lodgement of holding title or deed
• Unpaid service fees e.g. for filing of title
• Unpaid accounts
• Double registrations
• Non lodgement of poof of payment of taxes, diagrams for new sub-divisions, consolidations, partitions, general plans and sectional plans and other indispensible supporting documents e .g. deceased estate documents (see regulations 49 and 51 of the Deeds Registries Act)

So basically one of the above or a combination thereof is invariably a valid ground for the rejection of deeds.

The foregoing is only but a broad list of variables or areas for the potential rejection of deeds.  Examiners are advised to apply the following table in order to determine with pin-point accuracy if a fault is a valid rejection or not.

The above guidelines should be used in conjunction with CRC 1 of 1961 which deals with this matter as well as the respective office's in-house circulars.

Examiners should feel free to elaborate on the above list - Editor.