A Conveyancer’s Diary

Of cattle, horses and other animals


“Except with the consent of the Administrator, no cattle and no horse, cow pig or goat or other animal of a similar nature shall be kept on the erf.”


Thus reads one of the conditions in a title deed of a residential property situated in the heart of Westville.


I was checking the new transfer documents and found the condition. It now troubles me. Do I leave the condition in the new deed or do I remove it? Something about this bothers me and somewhere in the deep recesses of my memory I have this notion that conditions of this “nature” must be left out.

I had another (good) look at the circular from our Pietermaritzburg Registrar of Deeds number 2 of 2009 in which she dealt with those conditions that must be omitted from title deeds by virtue of the KwaZulu-Natal Planning and Development Act of 2008. These are conditions in favour of the Administrator [nowadays the Premier of the Province] which for example prohibit subdivision of prohibit the erection of a row of tenement houses, and so on. But nothing is mentioned about cattle or the other animals.

What to do now? Do I leave the condition in and hope that my Pietermaritzburg agent will know better? Or do I take it out and hope for the best? Or do I do two pages of the draft deed, one with the condition and one without, and ask my Pietermaritzburg agent to pick the correct one? Or do I write about this in my Conveyancer’s diary and hope that one of those conveyancers or conveyancing assistants who like Flippie have so many years of vast experience that one of them will be able to shepherd my animals clause in the right direction?

Regards
Sieg



Quote:

“ . . and the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls"
And whispered in the sounds of silence”

From Simon and Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence