ECONOMY

It is reported that first-time homeowners in the Western Cape make up only 19% of purchasers in that province, as opposed to 26% countrywide. Why? Because properties in the Western Cape are more expensive than elsewhere and because younger persons in the Western Cape earn less than their, for instance, Gauteng contemporaries.

Sieg heil: actually, Sieg is a good friend of mine; he happens to be, in his terms, a Sherman. As such he gave me a klap last week for suggesting that Germany

BUSINESS

Retirement: the limit of 65 as the retirement age was introduced by the Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, in order to appeal to the German working class and combat the power of the Socialist party in Germany during the late 1800s. Very few people, in those days, lived well beyond that age and the State was in little danger of being bankrupted by its undertaking. I have never quite understood why one should retire when one wants to continue and is useful. Especially amongst the professions where the mind, rather than the body, determines performance, early retirement makes absolutely no sense.

The newspapers regularly run shock stories about pensioners receiving Sanral bills. After attending a seminar on white-collar crime, I have come to the understanding that such misunderstandings are not owing to Sanral

PROPERTY

Victims? This week our Minister said that South Africa is the only African State that provides homes free of charge to its citizens. This right is set to be limited. In the future no one below the age of 40 will be given a free house.

PRACTICE

The Taxation Laws Amendment Bill has proposed a relaxation of the requirement of the annual distribution of 75% of donor funds to 50% in subsequent years, by tax-exempt entities. If, however, all the investment is not distributed within 5 years, the tax exempt status will be lost. Many trusts & the like have clauses requiring this ratio of distribution and may need amendment.

The Mail and Guardian reports that a black insolvency practitioner, when confronted with the situation that he and his white co

CASES

Forfeiture of patrimonial benefits on divorce

At common law, divorce was based on the fault principle where the court had to decide the guilt or innocence of a spouse. The position was that the guilty spouse should not be allowed to benefit from his wrong doing. In 1979 our divorce law was reformed and section 9 of the Act provides that a court may make an order that the patrimonial benefits of marriage may be forfeited by one party, in favour of the other, if the court finds substantial misconduct on the part of the forfeiting party and is satisfied that, if the forfeiture is not made, that the party wall be unduly benefited. I have a De Jure article on the subject if this interests you. Ask me for a copy

Universal partnership on divorce

Our courts regularly make use of a fiction of the existence of a universal partnership between married or shacked-up parties where they are divorced/separated or where one of them dies and the other is set to receive nothing from the marriage or union. What must one prove it in such a case? The standard of proof is that the plaintiff must show that the role that he played in the endeavours of the defendant is not only credible but overwhelmingly consistent with probabilities. Firstly each of the parties must bring something into the partnership or must have bound themselves to bring something into it, be it labour, money or skill. Secondly the partnership business had to be carried on for the joint benefit of both. Thirdly, the object of the partnership had to be to make a profit.
Cloete [2014] JOL 32110 (WCC)

Investigating officer negligently over- representing the State

QUOTABLES

WEIRD & WONDERFUL

Piet Retief was revealed to be a thief and a scoundrel and had fled the Cape rather than having set out bravely to conquer. Rhodes has now been revealed as having bribed a witness in order to avoid investigation and apparently engineered the prosecution of that gentleman. Rhodes scholars? I would not worry about this

LIGHTEN UP

A tourist was driving through the arid Karoo when he stopped at a desolate farmhouse to ask the way. He found the farmer sitting on his front stoep picking his teeth with a twig.