Sold house in SA - Public Notary requirement for documents Oz

[delboy2oz]

Hi All,

We have sold our house in SA, and have received the documents to transfer the property.

We need 3 documents that need to be signed in the Presence of an Embassy official(SA or UK)/Public Notary.

The embassy's does not provide this service, now we have to use a public notary - at $100 starting fee and wait for it, $30 per page after that.

Is this normal, can these documents not be JP signed like everything else?

Extract from the email:

Power of Attorney to Pass Transfer Yourselves AND 2 witnesses initial & sign in the presence of a Representative at the South African Embassy or British Embassy. Initial the first page at bottom right hand corner. Yourselves to sign 2nd page on line above your names & witnesses to sign individually next to numbers 1 and 2. Representative to affix seal of office and to sign.

Affidavits For signature by yourself in the presence of a Representative at the South African Embassy or British Embassy.

Apostille If the documents are signed in the presence of a Notary Public the Notary must complete an Apostile and his signature must be verified.

Anyone else had to do this?

Many Thanks

[Bronwyn&Co]

We just took out a bond through Absa (on a ppty in SA) and we had to get a notary in Brisbane. It cost $450 plus gst for a 45 minute appointment. Then the conveyancer in SA said the docs were wrong. So we were furious. After a big shouting match the lawyers sorted it out between them. I don't even think the bond is lodged yet and this has been ongoing for 8 months now...Good luck.

Edited July 18, 2014 by Bronwyn&Co

[Jordy]

Now this double standard I don't understand. We sold our house earlier this year. Nowhere did we have those instructions. We signed in front of a Justice of the Peace in Australia and the Transferring Attorneys accepted it. He didn't charge us one cent.

[delboy2oz]

Thanks for the replies, came across this post which also has 2 different outcomes,

http://www.saaustralia.org/index.php/topic/39301-authentication-of-transfer-documents-for-selling-sa-house/

[Johnno]

Now this double standard I don't understand. We sold our house earlier this year. Nowhere did we have those instructions. We signed in front of a Justice of the Peace in Australia and the Transferring Attorneys accepted it. He didn't charge us one cent.

was it a Nigerian JP?

[Eva]

Yep, same for us Jordy! Glad we didn't have to go through all that rigmarole!

(and our JP was an Aussie, not a Nigerian so no cash was involved )

To be honest I doubt whoever processes the paperwork in South Africa even knows 'who' signed it and 'who' should sign it.

[Bronwyn&Co]

The public notary had a red wax seal that he plastered everywhere, which just made the whole thing take longer...must be worth a lot ?

[Sibella]

We also paid a huge amount and then... Auspost Courier Service lost our VERY EXPENSIVE DOCUMENTS!

[delboy2oz]

Just had the "Power of attorney to pass transfer" notary public signed and sealed.

Now off to DFAT in the city to have them verify it, and add some $'s to the process.

Then I'll probably have to give blood, urine samples etc and then I can actually get the process complete of selling the house, LOL!

One last thing I wanted to add - the lawyers in SA will not accept an email with scanned documents - it must be faxed and originals posted.

I understand the originals must be posted, but not accepting an email with scanned documents as legal tender, must be faxed? So I'm sure they will clearly see the red seal on the document with the stamp via FAX.

[Gerhardk]

We went through similar route but we decided to give one of our parents power of attorney and had to send that off to SA - original. Just note, I tried three different Post Office options and only one arrived. First Registered Post ($14.40) - no!, second Express Post ($15.35) with tracking - no! and finally Courier ($56.50) and it worked. So consider going courier (maybe not Post Office courier) that operates in SA like DHL from the word go even if you have time (which we had).