Your question, answered

Between February and June 2026 Mr Klopper put nine written questions to the Minister about the Master's offices. This one asked how many estates each office has open, and how long they have been waiting.

What they were told: “statistics on matters that are ‘open’ are not kept due to the involvement of external role-players in the finalisation of a matter, which can often take years to finalise.”

What the record can measure: He was asking for the simplest measure of a backlog: how many estates are waiting, and for how long. The department does not keep it. Every estate that reaches the Government Gazette leaves two dated, public notices, so the time between them can be measured from outside, office by office.

Asked the same day as NW99. The reply gave average days per office, counted from when the Master has received all required documents, but said nothing about which offices exceed six months.

What they were told: On part (b): “Statistics in this regard are not kept.” The table gave Nelspruit 93 days to examine an account, against 6 to 39 days elsewhere.

What the record can measure: The department's clock starts only once every document is in. The public record starts earlier and shows the whole wait a family sees. The two measure different things.

Adv Breytenbach has raised the Master's offices in Parliament since 2021. The department has answered more than once that her claims give no specifics.

What they were told: “I can assure the Honourable member that the Masters Offices remains functional,” with national totals for the year so far: 49,301 liquidation and distribution accounts examined and 118,731 letters of appointment issued.

What the record can measure: The disagreement is about whether the offices still work. National totals cannot settle it, because a few busy offices can hide others that have stalled. The Gazette shows, office by office and quarter by quarter, whether accounts kept coming out.

The only per-office turnaround table in her record. It covers one year, 2021/22.

What they were told: A share of appointments made within 21 working days of receiving all documents, per office, for one year: from 39.5% in Kimberley to 100% in Thohoyandou.

What the record can measure: She asked for each office's turnaround and got a single year. The Gazette record gives the same offices a comparable measure for every year since 2017, where an office has 30 or more estates in a year.

An anonymous local source quoted by GroundUp's Justin Brown. The Mbombela Attorneys Association said the office had been in crisis for four years; the department acknowledged a backlog but said it was still quantifying it.

What they were told: The department “was still quantifying the precise backlog and consolidating the statistics.”

What the record can measure: Two questions sit inside the story: is Mbombela (Nelspruit) really the slowest office, and since when? Both can be measured from the public record, against every other office.

In October 2023 the Law Society told Parliament that the department's turnaround figures did not match what attorneys see, and asked for each office's figures to be published monthly, including how many estates come in and how many go out. (Reported speech, from GroundUp.)

What the record can measure: The Law Society wanted to check the official figures and could not get the data. The Gazette is a public record of both ends of an estate, so inflows and outflows can be counted without asking anyone. Since 2023 most notices to creditors print the Master's office after the date of death, so open estates can be counted by office too.

Nobody has published who actually administers South Africa's estates.

What the record can measure: Every first account names who lodged it. Read for a sample of estates, that gives a picture of who does the work: law firms, trust companies, other professionals and private persons. It does not give a list of the firms.

The committee reports that letters of executorship take ten to 12 months despite an official 15 days, that the acting Chief Master has not given it performance data, and that it resolved to gather further data nationally.

What the record can measure: The committee asks what the rest of this analysis measures: which office is worst, since when, and by how much, from the public record rather than the department's figures.

FISA represents the fiduciary industry: trust companies, attorneys and others who administer estates.

What the record can measure: Uneven is measurable: which offices improved, which stalled, and whether the gap between the fastest and the slowest has grown.