Guides
The things nobody tells you until it’s too late
Written for sellers in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, kept current, and specific enough to actually use.
Costs & tax
Estate agent commission — what’s normal, and what’s actually negotiable
There is no fixed commission rate in South Africa. Here is what agents really charge, what the VAT does to it, when it becomes payable, and how to negotiate without ending up with a worse sale.
7 min read
Every certificate you need to sell — and which ones Cape Town adds
Electrical, plumbing, gas, electric fence and beetle. Which are legally required, which are only contractual, what they cost, and the one that catches sellers in the City of Cape Town specifically.
8 min read
Your situation
Selling a property in a deceased estate
What an executor can and cannot do, why the Master of the High Court sets the timeline, when the property can be marketed versus when it can transfer, and how to keep an eighteen-month process from becoming a two-year one.
9 min read
Selling your South African property when you live overseas
The withholding tax, signing from abroad, and getting the proceeds out — written for owners who no longer live here.
9 min read
Downscaling, or moving into a retirement village
Life rights versus sectional title, sequencing the sale, and the costs people do not see coming.
8 min read