12.     Registers

            (1) The Registrar shall design, prepare, open and keep such personal, property and other registers as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this Act.

            (2) Any such register in which any debts secured by bonds are entered shall be deemed to be a continuation of the debt registers kept in the registry prior to the commencement of this Act, and any entries made therein shall have the same effect in law as they would have had if they had been made in the said debt registers.

13.     Continuation of existing registers

            Until such time as any new register has been prepared and opened under the provisions of section 12 the Registrar shall continue to keep the corresponding register in use in the registry immediately prior to the commencement of this Act, and to make therein the like entries as were customarily made therein prior to such date.

Deeds (ss 14-18)

14.     When registration takes place

            (1) Deeds executed or attested by the Registrar shall be deemed to be registered upon the affixing of the Registrar's signature thereto, and deeds, documents or powers of attorney lodged for registration shall be deemed to be registered when the deeds registry endorsement in respect of the registration thereof is signed:

            Provided that no such deed, document or power which is one of a batch of interdependent deeds, documents or powers of attorney intended for registration together, shall be deemed to be registered until all the deeds, documents or powers of attorney or the registration endorsements in respect thereof, as the case may be, have been signed by the Registrar.

            (2) If by inadvertence the Registrar's signature has not been affixed to a deed executed or attested by him, or to the registration endorsement in respect of the registration of a deed, document or power of attorney lodged for registration at the time at which the signature should have been affixed in the ordinary course, the Registrar may affix his signature thereto when the omission is discovered, and the deed, document or power of attorney shall thereupon be deemed to have been registered at the time aforesaid.

            (3) All endorsements or entries made on deeds, documents or powers of attorney or in registers, in connection with the registration of any deed, document or power of attorney, shall be deemed to have been effected simultaneously with the affixing of the signature of the Registrar thereto in respect of deeds executed or attested by the Registrar or with the signing of his registration endorsement in respect of deeds, documents or powers of attorney lodged for registration, although in fact they may have been made subsequent thereto.

15.     Deeds to follow sequence of their relative causes

            (1) Except as otherwise provided in this Act or in any other law or as directed by the court-

     (a)     transfers of land and cessions of real rights therein shall follow the sequence of the successive transactions in pursuance of which they are made, and if made in pursuance of testamentary disposition or intestate succession they shall follow the sequence in which the right to ownership or other real right in the land accrued to the persons successively becoming vested with such right;

     (b)     it shall not be lawful to depart from any such sequence in recording in the deeds registry any change in the ownership in such land or of such real right:

            Provided that-

      (i)     if the property has passed in terms of a will or through intestate succession from a deceased person to his descendants, and one or other of these descendants has died a minor and intestate and no executor has been appointed in his estate, transfer or cession of the property which has vested in that descendant may be passed by the executor in the estate of the deceased person direct to the heirs ab intestato of the descendants;

      (ii)     if the Registrar is satisfied that the value of the immovable property which has vested in any heir or legatee in terms of a will or through intestate succession would be equalled or exceeded by the costs involved in transferring or ceding it to the heir or legatee, and the heir or legatee has sold the property, transfer or cession thereof may, with the consent in writing of the heir or legatee, be passed by the executor in the estate of the deceased person direct to the purchaser;

     (iii)     if in the administration of the estate of a deceased person any redistribution of the whole or any portion of the assets in such estate takes place among the heirs (including ascertained fideicommissary heirs) of the deceased, or between such heirs and the surviving spouse, the executor or administrator of such estate may transfer the land or cede the real rights therein direct to the persons entitled thereto in terms of such redistribution;

    (iv)     in a redistribution mentioned in proviso (iii) it shall be lawful to introduce movable property not forming part of the estate for the purpose of equalizing the division;

     (v)     the provisions of proviso (iii) shall apply mutatis mutandis with reference to a redistribution of assets of the joint estate of spouses who were married in community of property and have been divorced or judicially separated, and with reference to a redistribution of assets of a partnership on dissolution of the partnership;

    (vi)     if a fideicommissum is created in a will and the fiduciary dies before transfer of his rights is effected in his name, the executor or the administrator (as the case may be) of the testator's estate, may transfer or cede the full property direct to the fideicommissary.

            (2) In any transfer or cession in terms of any proviso to subsection (1)(b) there shall be paid the transfer and death duties which would have been payable had the property concerned been transferred or ceded to each person successively becoming entitled thereto.

16.     Preparation of deeds by conveyancer

            (1) Except as is otherwise provided in any other law, no deed of transfer, mortgage bond or certificate of title or registration of any kind mentioned in this Act shall be attested, executed or registered by the Registrar unless it has been prepared by a conveyancer admitted or entitled to practise as such in terms of the Legal Practitioners Act.

            (2) Such conveyancer, whether or not he practises at the seat of the registry, may recover the fees and charges to which he may be entitled in accordance with any regulations.

            (3) The provisions of this section shall not apply in relation to any instrument attested under the provisions of the Married Persons Property Act.

17.     How real rights shall be transferred

            Except as otherwise provided in this Act or in any other law, the ownership of land may be conveyed from one person to another only by means of a deed of transfer executed or attested by the Registrar, and other real rights in land may be conveyed from one person to another only by means of a deed of cession attested by a notary public and registered by the Registrar:

            Provided that where the State has become entitled to acquire the ownership of the whole or portion of any land held under a title deed and such whole or portion, as the case may be, is depicted on a diagram or diagrams, the Registrar shall-

      (i)     make, free of charge to the State, such alterations and entries in his registers and such endorsements on the title deed as may be necessary to register the conveyance to the State of such whole or portion of land, and

      (ii)     simultaneously execute, free of charge to the State, a certificate of registered State title in respect of such whole or portion of land with the diagram or diagrams annexed thereto.

18.     Special provisions relating to women

            (1) All deeds executed or attested by the Registrar, or attested by a notary public and required to be registered in the deeds registry and made by or on behalf or in favour of any woman, shall in each case disclose the full name and status of the woman concerned, whether unmarried, married, widowed or divorced, as the case may be.

            (2) If the woman is married the full name of her husband shall also be disclosed and it shall be stated whether marriage was contracted with or without community of property or is governed by the law of any country which does not impose community of property on marriage.

            (3) A woman whether married in community of property or not shall not require the assistance of her husband in executing any deed or document required or permitted to be registered in the deeds registry or required or permitted to be produced in connection with any such deed or document, and immovable property may be transferred or ceded to her as if she were married out of community of property and the marital power did not apply.

            (4) Immovable property bequeathed or donated to a woman married in community of property may be transferred or ceded to that woman and shall not form part of the joint estate where, by a condition of the bequest or donation it is excluded from the community and the marital power.

             (5) If immovable property not excluded from the community is registered in the name of a spouse married in community of property, neither spouse may, irrespective of when that property was so registered, alone deal with such property unless he has the consent, in writing, of the other spouse, or has been authorised by an order of court to deal therewith.

            (6) If immovable property has been acquired by one or other of two spouses married in community of property in such a manner that the said property would on transfer or cession thereof become part of the joint estate, and the community has been dissolved by the death of one of the spouses before the property is transferred or ceded, the property shall be transferred or ceded to the joint estate of the spouses, pending liquidation thereof, and shall, subject to the provisions of any disposition affecting the property, be deemed to be the joint property of the surviving spouse and of the estate of the deceased spouse.

            (7) When immovable property or a bond is registered in the name of-

     (a)     a woman who has married since the registration was effected; or

     (b)     a woman who at the date of the registration was married out of or whose marriage was not subject to community of property, and who has since been widowed or divorced,

it shall be competent for the Registrar on written application by such woman and on production of the relevant deed and of proof to his satisfaction of the change in her status, to record such change on such deed and the registers:

            Provided that where there are two or more interdependent deeds, all such deeds shall be produced for endorsement.