Legal Articles and Guides

A mother whose ex-husband owed her maintenance payments for their children was legally entitled to withdraw funds from his pension without giving him notice, reports GroundUp.

A farmer with an estimated property portfolio valued at R25m has been ordered – pending divorce action – to pay his estranged wife just over R77 000 per month for maintenance compared to the R2 000 he offered at the start of the proceedings at the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg).

A divorcee was dealt a major blow when Western High Court Judge Derek Wille dismissed her application to have her monthly maintenance increased from R71 000 to R125 000 – with no evidence of why the increase was justified.

Mont Blanc sunglasses worth R15 000 and a 2019 Range Rover with personalised number plates became the subject of a legal battle in the Western Cape High Court.

The SCA has confirmed that maintenance orders lapse after 30 years only, if they’re not altered.

What happens if your life partner dies without leaving you anything in their will (“Last Will and Testament”)? Do you have the same protections as married spouses do?

Alternate dispute resolution

Even if your marriage is collapsing around you, you might be afraid to sue for divorce because you have no money to survive on, plus you know that a hotly contested divorce might take years to finalise while your breadwinner spouse fights you tooth and nail every step of the way.

A woman whose husband divorced her after 35 years of marriage lost her legal bid not to share her pension of more than R2.84m with him, says a Weekend Argus report.

With its ‘marriage-centric’ focus, the Constitutional Court privileges religious unions in its approach to the term spousal relationship, thereby failing to force the legislature to protect all legally unrecognised unions that play the same social role as marriage. So argues Ladysmith Magistrate Desmond Francke.

Elize O’Brien (42) – a mother of four married for more than 15 years to a man she has never met in her life – has had her ‘marriage’ entered into in February 2006 declared invalid.

A Johannesburg banking executive has discovered that divorce and ensuring that the estranged spouse continues to live the same lifestyle as before the break-up is costly, says a report in The Star.

Ahead of an expected judgment from the Constitutional Court on the recognition of Muslim marriages, the Al Jamah-ah Party has submitted a Private Members Bill on a proposed interim registration of Muslim marriages to the Speaker of Parliament, notes a Cape Argus report.

The Constitutional Court has reserved judgment in the application by the Women's Legal Centre Trust to provide finality on the state's obligation to recognise Muslim marriages as ordered by the SCA last year.

After a long struggle spanning more than 20 years, Muslim marriages may finally be recognised under common law as the Constitutional Court will today hear the application brought by the Women’s Legal Centre Trust (WLC), to confirm an order made in December by the SCA which declared the Marriage Act and the Divorce Act to be inconsistent with sections of the Constitution.