What Does a Conveyancer Actually Do?

A conveyancer is not simply any attorney with an interest in property. They hold a distinct, court-granted status — earned through a rigorous specialised examination — that no other legal professional possesses.

To become a conveyancer, a practising attorney must pass a specialised examination set by the High Court. Once they pass, the High Court formally admits them as a conveyancer. That admission is what unlocks the exclusive powers they hold — and the corresponding responsibilities they carry.

Every Deeds Office in the country keeps its own register of conveyancers who are authorised to practise at that particular office. You cannot simply walk in with a property deed and a general attorney — the law requires that a registered conveyancer appear before the Registrar. This is intentional: the system places legal responsibility squarely on the shoulders of one qualified professional.

An important nuance: while only a conveyancer may execute a deed (i.e., physically sign it before the Registrar), any attorney, notary, or conveyancer may prepare the supporting documents and power of attorney. The distinction between preparation and execution is fundamental to understanding how conveyancing works in practice.

Every deed of transfer, mortgage bond, or certificate of registered title carries a small but enormously important piece of text — the preparation certificate. It is the conveyancer's personal guarantee that everything in the document is correct.

When a conveyancer has prepared one of these key documents, the law requires them to sign a formal preparation certificate directly on the deed. By placing their signature there, they are not merely acknowledging their involvement — they are legally accepting responsibility for the accuracy of every fact contained in that document.

This is why your conveyancer will ask detailed, sometimes seemingly intrusive questions before finalising your documents. Every piece of information that goes into the deed must be independently verified — because once that preparation certificate is signed, there is no hiding behind "I was told that by the client." The conveyancer owns those facts.

The actual transfer of property ownership in South Africa is not completed by the buyer and seller shaking hands. It happens in a very specific, controlled way inside the Deeds Office — and it involves exactly two signatures.

A deed of transfer requires two people to sign it, in a particular sequence, for registration to be complete. Understanding who those two people are explains a great deal about how property law protects everyone involved.

Note that it is the conveyancer who signs on behalf of your seller — not the seller themselves. This is why the power of attorney from the seller to the conveyancer is such an important document in every transfer file. That document is what grants the conveyancer the legal authority to act.

There is an important distinction worth noting: certain other documents at the Deeds Office — such as certificates of registered title, or transfers by court order — are signed by the Registrar alone, without a conveyancer appearing alongside them. In those cases, registration happens the moment the Registrar signs, and we use the word "registers" rather than "executes" to describe what takes place.

South Africa has eleven Deeds Offices scattered across the country, from Cape Town to Nelspruit. At the head of each sits the Registrar of Deeds — the official whose signature gives property ownership its legal force.

The eleven Deeds Offices are located in Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Kimberley, King William's Town, Nelspruit, Pietermaritzburg, Polokwane, Pretoria, Vryburg, and Umtata. A Chief Registrar, based in Pretoria, oversees the entire national system and issues guidance that applies uniformly to all offices.

One of the most important things to understand about the Deeds Office is that registration is what creates legal ownership — not the sale agreement, not the payment of money, not the handing over of keys. Until the Registrar's signature appears on a deed of transfer, the seller remains the legal owner of the property, regardless of what else has happened.

This is why conveyancers work so carefully to ensure everything is perfectly in order before they lodge documents. Errors discovered during examination can delay the entire process — sometimes for days or even weeks — while corrections are made and documents re-submitted.

What happens if your Cape Town conveyancer is handling a property in Johannesburg — or a Johannesburg firm is asked to transfer a property in the Western Cape? This is where "correspondence attorneys" enter the picture.

Here is the key rule: a conveyancer may prepare and sign the preparation certificate for a deed destined for any Deeds Office in the country, no matter which province or city they work in. However — and this is the critical part — they can only physically lodge that deed at the Deeds Office in the city where they actually practise.

Before 1997, the rules were far more restrictive: a conveyancer could only practise in the province where they were registered, making correspondent relationships essential for virtually all inter-provincial transactions. The geographical restrictions were lifted in 1997, but correspondents are still routinely used when a firm's clients own property in another part of the country — because the local lodgement requirement remains.

A typical property transfer in South Africa involves not one, but often three separate law firms — each playing a distinct role, each communicating constantly with the others. Your conveyancer is the conductor of this orchestra.

When a property sells and there is both an existing bond to cancel and a new bond for the buyer to register, three separate registrations must happen simultaneously at the Deeds Office. Banks these days generally appoint different firms for each role, creating a three-firm structure that requires precise coordination.

In practice, the communication between these three firms is intensive and often daily in the lead-up to registration. The transfer attorney requests the title deed from the cancellation attorney's firm (who holds it on behalf of the bank), coordinates the guarantees from the bond attorney, confirms that all clearance certificates are in order, and arranges a joint lodgement date at the Deeds Office when all three matters can be registered simultaneously.

This coordination is also why your conveyancer needs to frequently update you on progress. When things slow down — waiting for bank guarantees, clearance figures, or documents from another firm — your transfer attorney is often not in control of the delay. What they can do is chase, escalate, and keep you informed so you understand exactly where the bottleneck is.

Here is the question every buyer and seller wants answered upfront — who pays what, and when? The short answer: buyers carry most of the costs, sellers have fewer but still significant obligations.

Unless the sale agreement explicitly states otherwise, the purchaser is responsible for the bulk of the costs associated with registering the transfer. The one exception worth noting: if the Consumer Protection Act applies to the transaction, the default position shifts and the seller must cover transfer costs unless the agreement says otherwise. Always check the sale agreement carefully on this point.

You will receive financial statements at various stages of your transfer. Understanding the difference between a provisional account and a final account — and what each column means — puts you firmly in control of your own transaction.

Conveyancers typically produce three types of financial documents during a transfer:

The seller's final account tends to be shorter. It starts with the purchase price as a credit and then records deductions: agent's commission (if applicable), cancellation attorney's fees, advance rates paid on behalf of the seller, and any advance levies for a sectional title unit. What remains after those deductions is the net proceeds paid out to the seller.

The buyer's final account is considerably more detailed, because the buyer bears most of the transfer costs. It begins with the purchase price as a debit, then lists all the disbursements made on the buyer's behalf — transfer duty, Deeds Office fees, conveyancer's fees, clearance fees, FICA fees, and any occupational rental if the buyer moved in before registration.