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Lawyer to draft will for free | South Africa
You can typically get a will drafted for free by a lawyer if you are willing to appoint the lawyer, or a related trust company, as executor of the will. If you want to appoint your own independent executor (not the lawyer doing the drafting), you should be able to get a straightforward will with no significant complications drafted for under R1,500.
A will gives you the opportunity to clearly indicate how and to whom your assets must be distributed after your death. If you die without a valid will, your assets will be distributed according to the strict formulas of the Intestate Succession Act, which may not align with your intentions.
Family, Estate & notarial legal services
Administering a deceased estate can be a highly complex process, requiring interactions with SARS, the Master of the High Court, and various financial institutions. Therefore, it is often best to ensure that a lawyer experienced in estates is nominated as executor in terms of your Will. If an inexperienced family member is appointed as executor, make sure that they're good at project management, and are aware of specialists to appoint to assist them (e.g., with the conveyancing surrounding the transfer of any property).
Before You Draft Your Will
It is highly recommended to organise your estate structure before consulting a lawyer. You can use this free Advanced Will Generator to digitally draft your preliminary document. It automatically sets up crucial clauses, such as excluding inheritances from the marital regimes of your beneficiaries and establishing testamentary trusts for minor children. Once drafted, always run your final document through a Will Validity Checker to ensure it meets the strict execution requirements of the Wills Act 7 of 1953.
In addition to appointing an executor, you need to detail who you bequeath your estate to, and explicitly stipulate whether it is excluded from the marital regime (e.g., community of property) which might apply to any current or future marriage of each beneficiary. If you have minor children, you must decide who you will appoint as a legal guardian.
⚠️ Execution Warning: You will need two competent people (over 14 years old who do NOT inherit from the will) to witness your signature. The Testator must physically sign every single page of the will in wet ink. You should also record your witnesses' full names, ID numbers, phone numbers, and addresses.
Trust funds, usufructs & conveyancing
Whilst it's easy to get a lawyer or bank to draft a basic will for you for free, you won't find lawyers or notaries willing to do related specialist administrative activities for free, such as:
- Registering a trust (click here to see a list of the top trust lawyers in Cape Town).
- Transfer of property inside a deceased estate (which carries separate conveyancing fees).
- Notarial deeds of cession of usufruct.
The "Free Will" Trap from Major Banks
Another option heavily marketed to the public is using a major bank's trust division (like Absa Trust, FNB, or Standard Trust) to draft your will. They will typically draft your will for "free" provided your asset value meets a minimum threshold and they are appointed as the sole executor.
However, this "free" service comes at a significant delayed cost to your heirs:
- Storage Fees: Banks often charge an annual fee (e.g., R115+ including VAT) just to keep the will in their custody. Many private lawyers will hold your original will securely for free.
- Maximum Executor Fees: When you use a bank's free drafting service, their standard terms almost always lock your estate into paying the absolute statutory maximum executor's fee: 3.5% (excluding VAT) on the gross value of all assets.
- Lack of Negotiation: Once the bank is appointed in the will at the maximum tariff, your surviving family has almost no power to negotiate the fee down. If you use a private deceased estate lawyer, you can often negotiate the executor's fee upfront to 1.5% or 2.5%, saving your estate hundreds of thousands of Rands in administrative costs.
Deceased Estate Information
If a relative has died, perhaps without a will, and you are unsure of what to do:
- Report deceased estate to the Master online
- Steps to take when your parent dies without a will.
- Lawyers in Cape Town specialising in deceased estates.
- Administrators in Cape Town for deceased estates.
- Letter of executorship requirements in South Africa.
- J192 form - next-of-kin (if no will)
- Nomination to act as executor (if no will)
- J190 form assistance
- Administration of deceased estates in South Africa.
- Property transfer cost in a deceased estate.
- Inheritance and child maintenance obligations.
- Intestate Succession Act
- Tracking deceased estates
- Death of a spouse before divorce is finalised
Wills
- How to write a will.
- Example of a last will and testament.
- Get your will drafted for free (by a lawyer).
- List of lawyers that draft wills in Cape Town.
- Consider updating your will when these events occur:
- when divorcing; to avoid your ex-spouse possibly inheriting everything.
- death of somebody mentioned in your will,
- the birth of a child you may want to include in your will,
- marriages
Connect with a Deceased Estate Expert today
Deceased Estate discussion forum
Note that this is a public forum - exercise caution before acting on info and use at own risk. Anybody may ask and answer, and you don't know what their level of expertise is. No information on this website should be acted on without first consulting with a lawyer to test its validity. Do not share private details here.
