We can reseal the UK Grant in South Africa.

The following documents will be needed to start the process:

Can you please note that in due time we will need several certified copies (usually at least four (4) copies) of the Passport of each Executor, and also of a Utility Bill dated within the last three months, showing the home address of each Executor.

The costs involved are about R20,000 (about £1,750) for our agents.

           If you need our help, then once we have an idea of what will be involved, we will give you a fixed quote for the cost of doing the work. We operate on a fixed fee basis, although if extra unanticipated work is involved, we may ask for a review. The disbursements are likely to be minor miscellaneous charges – such as £50 to cover postages including overseas postages; the printing costs of £35; the costs of the sealed and certified copy of the Grant – HMCTS for £10; Notarial fees and the cost of the Apostille also have to be taken into account, but these will be paid by the Executors direct to the Notary.

Courier charges are in addition, and can amount to £300 during the course of the resealing and sale or transfer process (see below).

As regards time, this is extremely variable because of the notices to be given and the court calendar, amongst general delays. We advise that even though the process itself can be achieved within one month, it is more likely to take six months before everything is completed and the Shares are transferred into the names of the beneficiaries.

As regards the sale or transfer of the shares once the Grant has been resealed, this will be organised by our South African agents, as they know the system and how it works, and the short cuts.

As for the sale of the shares, once the transfers have been completed, we can either have them sold in South Africa and then only the net proceeds need to be transferred to your / our Instructing Firm’s nominated bank account (we do not handle clients monies), or you can use your regular brokers, and if they do not handle South African shares, then we can use our regular brokers for the purpose. This will mean you / our Instructing Firm opening an account with them (just a two page Form needs to be signed), and they will then account to you / our Instructing Firm directly once the shares have been sold (we do not handle clients monies).

Can you please note that the post is very unreliable in South Africa and even gets stolen (which if the letter contains original share certificates can be disastrous), and this problem exists even if we send mail by Royal Mail International Signed For. This means that the safest way of delivering documents is to use a courier service such as DHL / Fedex / UPS which costs about £50 for each package. As we may have to send at least 6 packages to South Africa during the course of the administration of the estate and the resealing process, this can be expensive, but it is the safest option. If you want us to pick and choose on each occasion which method of delivery to use, we will be happy do so, using the courier service for documents which are difficult to replace, such as original share certificates, sealed and certified copy Grants and original Death Certificates (which we usually send in one package in any event).