Who administers estates
In 2025 about one notice to creditors in five (roughly 16% to 24%) named a private person as executor, but professionals lodged about 96% of estates' first accounts, and law firms' share of first accounts rose from 45% in 2013 to 55%. From samples of 1,000 estates a year, every entry read.
Who is named as executor on the notice to creditors
For 2013, 2019 and 2025, the share of a sample of the year's estates whose first notice to creditors names a private person as executor, and the share naming a professional (a law firm, a trust company, another firm, or a professional named in person). The pale part of the private bar is the notices too unclear to tell. Each whisker is the 95% margin of the share printed above the bar (for private persons, the dark part; the pale part has none).
A sample of 1,000 estates a year; a notice that names no executor (33 in 2013, fewer since) is left out. A private person is the executor the notice names, even when an attorney acts for them. The margins cover sampling only. Two coders who read the same 240 notices from 2025 agreed on whether the executor was a private person for 205 of them (85%), so the rise from 2013 is no larger than the coders' own disagreement: read the level, not the change.
Cite
GazetteSearch (2026). Who is named as executor on the notice to creditors. Release 2026-10-02b. gazettesearch.co.za/analysis/executors#named-on-notice. Data: CC BY 4.0.
Who lodges the estate's first account
For 2013, 2019 and 2025, the share of a sample of the year's estates whose first account was lodged by each kind of filer, whoever lodged it (the executor or their agent): all professionals, then law firms, bank and insurer trust companies together with professionals named in person, other professional firms, and private persons (the pale part: too unclear to tell). On the chart the third group is "trust companies and named professionals". Each whisker is the 95% margin of the share printed above the bar (for private persons, the dark part; the pale part has none).
A sample of 1,000 estates a year, each estate's first account. Bank and insurer trust companies are not shown on their own: the coders differed on whether a member of a bank trust company's staff, named in person, counts as the bank or as a professional. Two coders who read the same 240 accounts agreed on whether whoever lodged it, the executor or their agent, was a private person for 237 of them. The margins cover sampling only.
Cite
GazetteSearch (2026). Who lodges the estate's first account. Release 2026-10-02b. gazettesearch.co.za/analysis/executors#lodged-account. Data: CC BY 4.0.