Why should a home owner have a copy of the Title Deed or why should a home buyer take a look at the Title Deed before buying a property? These are quite valid questions being asked by our customers all the time.

It is of critical importance to have a copy of the Title Deed (usually called a Deed of Transfer) to ensure you know exactly what restrictions there are on a property. Imagine you buying a property only to later find out that there is a municipal pipe running through your backyard and the Title Deed states that the municipality can at any given time come and dig your garden.

Imagine the estate agent telling you you can expand your house by building on a garage in front only to later find out that there is a 15m road reserve and your property end 3m from your front door.

Title Deeds contain vital information about a property including certain restrictions and conditions that needs to be taken into account when expanding your property or selling it.

The Deeds Office is responsible for the registration, management, and maintenance of the property registry of South Africa. There are 11 deeds offices (Pretoria, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Mpumalanga, Pietermaritzburg, Bloemfontein, Vryburg, King Williams Town, Umtata, Limpopo and Bloemfontein).

You can get information from the deeds registry on the following:

• The registered owner of a property
• The conditions affecting such property
• Interdicts and contracts in respect of the property
• Purchase price of the property
• Rules of a sectional title scheme
• A copy of an antenuptial contract (ANC), deeds of servitude, mortgage bonds, etc.
• A copy of a sectional title plan or the rules of a Sectional

What is the difference between a Title Deed and Deed of Transfer

An onerous title deed condition that isn’t discovered in time could delay or prevent the progress of a property development resulting in serious cost implications for the developers. Alternatively, such an omission could be costly when buying or selling property.

The deeds registration offices had a system whereby deeds were lodged in duplicate and the Deeds Office would endorse changes of ownership, caveats, interdicts, mortgage bonds, and servitudes against the title deeds. They would keep one copy for records purposes and the other copy would be given back to the client.

It was not standard practice, nor prescribed in any Act, that conditions be carried forward from deed to deed. In the Deeds Registries in the former Cape Province the so-called pivot deed system had existed prior to 1937. The pivot deed system is unique to the Cape Town deeds registry.

In terms of this system, no conditions were carried forward in a title deed. The title deed conditions would simply state:

“Subject to the conditions as contained in Deed of Transfer No … [with reference to the prior title deed]”.

When searching the above pivot deed, one would find that these deeds in turn make reference to earlier title deeds.

It is only since 1937 that title deed conditions have been carried forward in each new title deed. Thus, to determine all the possible conditions against and in favour of a property, proper research must be done and all previous title deeds must be checked, from the day when the first Government Grant or Crown Grant was issued up to 1937.

The practical way would be to employ a conveyancing attorney, skilled in these matters, to conduct the research and prepare a Conveyancer’s Certificate to certify that

• the Conveyancer did a search behind the pivot deed and
• found no onerous conditions relevant to the proposed nature of the transaction or development, etc.

Since the 1980s the Deeds Registration offices introduced a micro filming system, and since then all title deeds lodged are microfilmed. In addition, a scanning system was introduced in 2007/ 2008. Deeds Office records are now kept on both microfilm and in digital format, while the original title deeds are sent back to the attorneys for delivery to the new owner or bank(s).

Title deeds are endorsed with changes in ownership, mortgage bonds and all other property related transactions. This of course depends on the instruction the
deeds office had received on lodgement from the conveyancing firm.

The Deeds Offices continually update their records and one can obtain a “Deeds Office printout” to view the most current information listed against the property via us including:

• Interdicts and caveats (examples are court orders, insolvency and rehabilitation notices,
• Sequestration orders, liquidation orders, notices from the Surveyor General’s office, and expropriation notices).
• Sectional title information, such as
  • Exclusive use areas
  • Rights of further extension reserved by the developer (section 25)
  • Servitudes on common property
  • Notarial servitudes
  • Mortgage bonds

It is also important to note that updated information pertaining to property transactions can take, from date of registration, as long as 5-8 working days to appear on the system of the Deeds Offices. Sectional-title transactions can take up to 10 days and other transactions that involve cross-writing in title deeds filed in counter cover can take up to three weeks. (Cross-writing is the updating of all relevant and related information in documents filed at Deeds Registration offices. The counter-cover system applies where 20 or more properties are held under one title deed, and where the client requests the Deeds Office to keep the original title deed in its records.)