Conveyancers in Randburg

Conveyancing in Randburg is the legal process of transferring ownership of immovable property and is lodged at the Johannesburg Deeds Office, which serves the City of Johannesburg metropolitan area including Randburg. Only an attorney who has passed the conveyancing exam and been admitted as a conveyancer may execute the transfer — conveyancing is a separate qualification from general attorney admission. A clean transfer typically takes six to twelve weeks from instruction to registration, with the main delays usually traced to outstanding rates clearance from the City of Johannesburg, SARS transfer duty verification, or bond approval timing from the buyer’s bank. Burger Huyser Attorneys handles notarial and conveyancing work from its head office at 49 First Avenue, Linden, Randburg (011 888 0246), with a qualified Notary and Conveyancer on staff acting as the firm’s conveyancer across Gauteng files.

Why Engage a Specialist Conveyancer in Randburg

Property transfers in Randburg are lodged at the Johannesburg Deeds Office, not at any local court in Randburg itself — only attorneys admitted as conveyancers may execute the transfer and lodge the documentation. The Deeds Office is a single national system with regional lodgement offices; the seat that serves the Randburg area is the Johannesburg office in the central business district, and the Randburg Magistrate’s Court plays no role in property registration. A conveyancer who has worked the Johannesburg Deeds Office routinely knows where each file is sitting in the lodgement queue and which examiner queries to expect, and that operational knowledge is what keeps the file moving.

Conveyancing is a separate admission from attorney admission. An attorney has to pass the conveyancing exam and be admitted as a conveyancer before they may lodge deeds at the Deeds Office, so not every attorney can act on a transfer — even a competent general attorney must hold the conveyancing qualification to execute deeds. Confirming that the person running the file is an admitted conveyancer, not a generalist attorney supervising the work, is the first question to ask at instruction.

The seller conventionally nominates the transferring attorney in the offer to purchase, but the buyer can negotiate the appointment — especially where the buyer is also using a bond from a particular bank that prefers a specific bond attorney. A Randburg-based conveyancer with a working relationship with the Johannesburg Deeds Office and the City of Johannesburg’s rates-clearance desk compresses the timeline relative to an out-of-area firm that has to learn the local back-channel.

Burger Huyser Attorneys’ Notarial and Conveyancing practice meets each of these criteria from the firm’s Linden head office, with admitted conveyancer Amanda le Roux running the deeds work across Gauteng files under the firm’s supervision.

What the Service Covers (Scope of Engagement)

The conveyancing service covers every step from a signed offer to purchase through to registered ownership. Burger Huyser’s scope of engagement typically includes:

• Deed of sale review and condition compliance — drafting or reviewing the deed of sale, confirming the suspensive conditions, and checking the parties’ compliance before transfer proceeds.
• Title deed due diligence — pulling the existing title deed, examining it for servitudes, restrictive conditions, encumbrances, and any rights registered against the property.
• Rates clearance from the City of Johannesburg — confirming that rates, taxes, and utility accounts are paid up to date. This is a mandatory lodgement requirement under the Deeds Registries Act and the transfer will not register without it.
• Transfer documentation and lodgement — preparing the deed of transfer, the bond documents where applicable, and the SARS transfer duty application, and lodging the file at the Johannesburg Deeds Office.
• Registration-day funds coordination — managing the deposit, the bond proceeds, the seller’s existing bond cancellation, and the agent’s commission payment in a single flow on the registration date.
• Bond registration or cancellation in parallel — handling the new bond registration where the buyer is funding via a bond, and the cancellation of the seller’s existing bond where the property is currently bonded.

The Local Filing Layer: Where Randburg Conveyancing Hits the Map

The Johannesburg Deeds Office is the lodgement venue for all property transfers in the Randburg area. The local Randburg Magistrate’s Court does not register property; it sits for criminal and civil matters in the Randburg magisterial district, and going there expecting to lodge a transfer is a common first-time error. Only the Deeds Office registers property in Randburg, and only an admitted conveyancer may lodge documents there.

The substantive law governing the transfer is national:

Statute	What it governs
Deeds Registries Act 47 of 1937	Deeds registry framework, lodgement procedure, examiner queries, registration of title
Transfer Duty Act 40 of 1949	Transfer duty payable to SARS on property acquisitions above the exemption threshold
Sectional Titles Act 95 of 1986	Sectional title schemes, opening of sectional title registers, body corporate governance

Transfer duty is collected by SARS — paid by the buyer on properties above the SARS-determined exemption threshold — and must be settled before the Deeds Office will register the transfer. Current transfer duty rates are confirmed with SARS at instruction; they change periodically and a quote issued at one date can be out of date by registration if rates have moved.

Costs, Fees, and What Affects Them

Conveyancing fees depend on the transaction value, the work involved, and the disbursements required. The headline cost components and the conventional allocation between buyer and seller are set out below.

Cost component	Who typically pays	What it is
Conveyancing attorney fees (transferring attorney)	Buyer (by convention)	Tariff-based fee scaled by the property’s purchase price, set by the Law Society’s prescribed tariff
Bond registration fees (bond attorney)	Buyer	Tariff-based fee scaled by the bond amount, charged where the buyer is registering a new bond
Bond cancellation fees (cancellation attorney)	Seller	Tariff-based fee for cancelling the seller’s existing bond at registration
Transfer duty	Buyer	SARS-administered tax on property purchases above the exemption threshold
Deeds Office registration fees	Buyer (and seller for bond cancellation)	Fixed nominal fees set under the Deeds Registries Act for registering the transfer and any bond
Rates clearance fees	Seller	Fee paid to the City of Johannesburg for issuing the rates clearance certificate

The conventional buyer-pays / seller-pays split is just that — conventional, not statutory. Where the parties agree a different allocation (typically by addendum to the deed of sale), the conveyancer adjusts the file accordingly. Burger Huyser Attorneys provides a detailed cost breakdown up front after the instruction is taken, so each party knows their share before the file proceeds.

Timeline: From Instruction to Registration

A clean, uncomplicated transfer typically takes six to twelve weeks from instruction to registration. The conveyancer can chase each external dependency in parallel, but the file cannot move forward until all three clear. The longest delays are usually:

1. Rates clearance from the City of Johannesburg — the municipality has to issue the clearance certificate, which can take several weeks depending on the rates account status and any arrears or queries on the municipal account.
2. SARS transfer duty verification — SARS has to confirm receipt of payment before the Deeds Office will register. Late or incorrect declarations extend the file.
3. Bond approval from the buyer’s bank — the bank’s turnaround time on the bond approval and final grant directly determines the timeline. Bond payout figures must be available before lodgement.

Other friction points — missing compliance certificates, building-plan approvals, marital status documentation, linked transactions, and deceased estate complications — can extend the timeline further. A conveyancer flags these at instruction rather than at registration.

Who Chooses the Conveyancer, and What Difference It Makes

The seller usually nominates the transferring attorney in the offer to purchase — this is the standard convention in South African property transfers, but it is negotiable. The buyer can request that their own attorney run the transfer, particularly where the buyer is funding the purchase with a bond from a bank that prefers the bond work to be run by a specific firm on its panel. The choice has practical consequences: where the same firm acts as both transferring attorney and bond attorney (where allowed on the bank’s panel), the file runs on a single timeline rather than two parallel attorney tracks, which compresses the registration date.

Choosing a local Randburg / Linden conveyancer with a known working relationship with the Johannesburg Deeds Office and the City of Johannesburg’s rates-clearance desk further compresses the timeline relative to an out-of-area firm. Documents that require notarial execution — antenuptial contracts signed in parallel with a property transfer, deeds of suretyship, certain affidavits used in property matters — must be signed before a Notary Public; Burger Huyser has a Notary and Conveyancer on staff so notarial work can be done in-house without referring the client out.

Practical Considerations: What to Bring to the First Consultation

Bringing the right documents to the first consultation removes several days of back-and-forth later in the file. The standard intake pack is:

Party	Documents to bring
Seller	ID document, the existing title deed (or consent to a Deeds Office search), the latest rates account from the City of Johannesburg, bond statement (if the property is bonded), the signed offer to purchase or deed of sale, and a list of any fixtures or moveable items included in the sale.
Buyer	ID document, proof of residence, the signed offer to purchase or deed of sale, the bond approval letter (if applicable), and confirmation of the deposit payment.
Both parties	FICA documentation (proof of residence, ID, and source of funds details) as required for the transfer of funds on registration day; and details of any special conditions in the sale agreement (e.g. occupational arrangements, suspensive conditions still to be fulfilled) so the conveyancer can plan around them.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a conveyancer cost in Randburg?

Conveyancing attorney fees are set on the Law Society’s prescribed tariff and are scaled by the property’s purchase price. On top of conveyancing fees, the buyer pays transfer duty to SARS (calculated on a sliding scale above the SARS exemption threshold), Deeds Office registration fees, and a rates clearance fee to the City of Johannesburg; the seller pays bond cancellation fees if the property is currently bonded. Burger Huyser Attorneys gives a full cost breakdown up front after the initial instruction, so each party knows their share before the file proceeds.

How long does a property transfer take in Randburg?

A clean transfer typically takes six to twelve weeks from instruction to registration. The timeline is dictated by the slowest of three external dependencies — the rates clearance from the City of Johannesburg, SARS transfer duty verification, and bond approval from the buyer’s bank. A conveyancer can chase these in parallel but cannot move the file forward until each one clears, so the fastest realistic timeline is usually driven by whichever of the three takes the longest.

Who chooses the conveyancing attorney in Randburg?

The seller usually nominates the transferring attorney in the offer to purchase — this is the standard convention in South African property transfers — but the buyer can request that their own attorney run the transfer, particularly where the buyer is funding the purchase with a bond from a bank that prefers the bond work to be run by a specific firm. Burger Huyser Attorneys can act for either party; the firm will confirm which role it is being instructed in at the outset.

Can I do the conveyancing myself?

No — property transfers in South Africa may only be lodged by an attorney who holds a conveyancing qualification, which is a separate admission from general attorney admission. Only conveyancers may execute deeds and lodge documents at the Deeds Office; no DIY or shortcut is legally possible, and any arrangement that purports to bypass this should be treated as unlawful.

Where is the Johannesburg Deeds Office, and does the Randburg Magistrate’s Court handle transfers?

The Johannesburg Deeds Office is in Johannesburg Central and is the lodgement venue for property transfers in Randburg and the broader City of Johannesburg metropolitan area. The Randburg Magistrate’s Court does not handle property registration — it sits for criminal and civil matters in the local magistrate’s district. This is a common point of confusion for first-time buyers and sellers, but only the Deeds Office registers property in Randburg.

Do I need a notary as well as a conveyancer?

Not every conveyancing transaction requires a Notary Public, but documents requiring notarial execution — antenuptial contracts signed in parallel with a property transfer, deeds of suretyship, and certain affidavits used in property matters — must be signed before a Notary. Burger Huyser Attorneys has a Notary and Conveyancer on staff, so notarial work can be done in-house without referring the client out to a separate notary practice.

For conveyancing in Randburg, contact Burger Huyser Attorneys’ head office at 49 First Avenue, Linden, Randburg on 011 888 0246 (after-hours 061 516 6878), or visit the office during consulting hours (Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 4:30pm). The firm’s Notarial and Conveyancing practice handles transfers end-to-end — title deed due diligence, rates clearance from the City of Johannesburg, SARS transfer duty, lodgement at the Johannesburg Deeds Office, and registration-day funds coordination — through a qualified Notary and Conveyancer on staff. The firm carries a 4.8/5 average across 250+ Google reviews (Trustindex verified “Top Rated Law Firm in South Africa”) and handles conveyancing and notarial work alongside its other practice areas across its Gauteng branches.