Master of the High Court of South Africa

The mission of the Master of the High Court of South Africa is to provide efficient, cost-effective and specialised services of supervision, custodianship, arbitration and information regarding deceased and insolvent estates and trusts, serving estate practitioners, beneficiaries of estates and trusts, minors, and mentally challenged persons in South Africa for the purpose of safeguarding those beneficiaries’ financial and proprietary rights.

The Master’s office has five main divisions. They all strive to protect the financial interests of persons whose assets or interests are, for various reasons, being managed by others.

The Master’s offices execute, inter alia, the following functions: administration of estates of deceased and insolvent persons in accordance with the applicable statutory prescriptions; protection of the interests of minors and legally incapacitated persons; protection and administration of the funds of minors, the contractually incapacitated, and undetermined and absent heirs that have been paid into the Guardian’s Fund; supervision of the administration of companies and close corporations in accordance with the relevant statutory prescriptions; determination and assessment of estate duties, by virtue of a delegation by the South African Revenue Services; supervision of trusts; safeguarding of all documentary material received by the Master in respect of estates, insolvencies, liquidations and trusts; processing of enquiries by executors, attorneys, beneficiaries and other interested parties; and appointment of impartial and capable persons as executors, trustees, curators and liquidators.