mplaczek

Ok, this is the story. My partner's mum lives in Johannesburg. She is elderly and her health is not great and she has had a number of scary break-ins recently. We have been talking to her about moving over here with us, and she has in principal agreed.

However if she is going to move, she wants to bring over her savings and sell her house.

I think it will be far easier for her to come over here, and then we can work on selling the property. Does anyone know of how to go about selling a property in SA from over here? Any tips/suggestions?

And secondly, how would she be able to send money over here given that she is not very mobile anymore?

Any suggestions would be appreciated

Karl 227

http://www.myproperty.co.za/

David Lock

Sorry to say this but I suspect transferring proceeds over here may be difficult because of currency transfer regulations. I lived in J'burg, albeit some time ago, and there were major restrictions about transferring money. Hopefully there may be some concessions in the circumstances and I am sure she would be safer over here based on what I continue to hear about life over there. Good luck. DL

Buckrogers

As above. Restrictions on transfering cash out. Best advice, speak to an SA based lawyer.

mplaczek

Thanks for the replies everyone.
You're not wrong there David. It is very sad really, my partner lived over there for many years when she was growing up, beautiful place... never had to worry about safety, they left their doors unlocked etc. and now... things are very different... I have hear some very disturbing stories too.

Thanks for that link Karl
And thanks for the info David and Buckrogers. I was not aware such restrictions were in place. We'll see what we can do I guess.

David Lock

I'm sure you do need to talk to a SA lawyer as Buck suggests or someone over there to get up-to-date info. However there will be loads of peeps in similar situation and you need to find out what they do in similar circumstances. There may be some "tricks" like selling up in J'Burg and buying a holiday property in a safer area for rent to overseas visitors who pay you directly in hard currency offshore; you can also do a deal on spending money so they pay you sterling and you arrange for them to have Rand for when they are over there. A pain in the **** I know. I expect there is a "Friends of South Africa" site or similar so I would investigate that to start with. You could e-mail the British Embassy and they may give you some pointers after they have finished the tennis of course. DL