Services Explained

Family Law Services

Moya Rossouw and her team are committed to one vision: to provide excellent service to their clients with an impervious and unrivalled reputation. We make decisions that require a collaborative approach with a healthy level of debate to ensure that the best results are achieved for our clients. We offer the following Family Law Services:

Divorce and interim relief
Guardianship and care of minor children
Contact with minor children
Parenting Plans
Unmarried father’s rights
Paternity disputes
Parental Responsibilities and Rights
Child-care, foster parenting, adoption, detention orders, child abuse and placement of children
Same-sex rights issues, adoption, contact, custody, regulation of same-sex relationships, cohabitation and civil unions
Variation of matrimonial property regimes (i.e. Ante-Nuptial and Post-Nuptials)
Rights of cohabitants
Substance abuse and rehabilitation orders
Maintenance claims of children and spouses against deceased estates
Guardianship issues arising from religious and cultural marriages
Family mediation
Antenuptial Contracts
Curatorship Applications
International Child Abduction, as regulated by the Hague Convention
Child mobility and relocation
Accredited Mediation as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism
Surrogacy agreements

Property Disputes

A property dispute is a legal dispute that involves immovable property. It covers a wide range of possible disputes over a wide range of property types. The property involved could be anything from a vacant erf to a home, boundary wall or a driveway of real property, to name but a few. Property disputes can be small or large, and may occasionally affect marketability of title (although it does not have to in order to be a dispute). Property disputes can involve just about anyone who has an interest in the real estate in question. Most property disputes involve the owner of the property in some way, but can also involve family members, neighbours, landlords and tenants, Homeowner Associations (HOA’s) trespassers, builders and developers, Government Agencies and/or Municipalities.

High Court Litigation

The South African civil legal system is adversarial by nature and not inquisitorial. Therefore, litigation is a process.

Achieving a successful outcome in litigation requires a great deal more than knowledge of the process. It requires strategic planning, critical thinking, research, thorough preparation, a strong team, and a willingness to review and be flexible in your approach and strategy as a case progresses.

Conveyancing

The law of conveyancing refers to the legal process whereby a person, company, close corporation or trust becomes the registered and legal owner of immovable property, including improved and unimproved land, houses, farms, apartments and sectional titles, as well as the registration of bonds and other rights to fixed properties, including servitudes, usufructs and the like. The process ensures that such ownership cannot be challenged.

Conveyancing entails a process of transfer from the date the deed of sale is signed to the date of payment of finances and delivery of the deeds. A Conveyancer is a qualified attorney who also passed the national conveyancing examination and by law is the only person who can register fixed property transfers. This is necessary to ensure the protection of the various interests the parties have in a transaction and to maintain a high standard of land registrations.

Commercial Law

Law firms are businesses and our work therefore includes supporting other businesses in solving commercial issues. Commercial law often refers to matters where clients are businesses rather than individuals. Much of our transactional work focuses on protecting a client’s business interests by managing various risks. Our day-to-day commercial practice involves drawing up a wide range of commercial agreements and assisting clients with the registration of a new business. It can also include litigation with respect to the breach or enforcement of agreements, transferring or terminating a business, consumer complaints, protection of intellectual property and trade secrets, monetary damages for losses and business mediation or other alternative dispute resolution methods.

Notaries

A Notary Public is a qualified attorney who also passed the national notary examination and by law is the only person who is legally empowered to witness the signing of documents and certify that the contents of an official document are indeed true and correct.

A Notary Public is held to a higher standard of care than an attorney, in some respects. A Notary specialises in the drafting and legalisation of certain documents that have to be used as official documents abroad or within the Republic of South Africa. When documents have been notarised by a Notary, they are assumed to be complete and legal.

Alternative Dispute Resolution

Mediation is a popular method to resolve disputes. Successfully participating in a mediation process can result in resolving any dispute within days, thereby saving time, protracted and unpleasant litigation as well as legal costs for all the parties concerned.

Various Acts in South Africa now also compels parties to first attempt mediation as an alternative way of resolving a dispute prior to being permitted to proceed to formal litigation in the event of an unsuccessful mediation outcome.