When a debtor defaults on payment to a creditor, one remedy available to a creditor is to obtain an emoluments attachment order whereby the debtor is ordered to pay off the debt in installments that are deducted from the debtor’s salary by his or her employer and paid to the creditor until the debt is settled.

In the case of Stand 278 Strydom Park (Pty) Ltd v Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (unreported case no 23503/2014), the court had to consider whether a municipality is entitled to terminate the supply of municipal services to a property due to unpaid historical debt attached to that property, which was incurred by the prior owners of the property and secondly, whether a municipality could attach a purchaser’s property as a result of these unpaid historical debts.

Property groups and other companies are being warned to gain a thorough understanding of the new International Financial Reporting Standard 16 Leases (“IFRS 16”) rules, which will become effect in 2019. These rules will change how, when and at which magnitude expenses are recognised.

Claims based on tacit universal partnerships are frequently encountered in divorce litigation, where the spouses where married to each other out of community of property with the exclusion of the accrual system. In the case of RD v TD 2014 (4) SA 200 (GP), the court reiterated the distinction drawn between two kinds of universal partnership. Firstly, societas universorum bonorum, by which the parties agree to put in common all their property, present and future.

In a recent case, Pecton Outsourcing Solutions CC v Pillemer and Others [2016] 2 BLLR 186 (LC), a court ruled that Pecton, a temporary employment service, was not allowed to give notice of termination of employment to its employees purely based on one of its clients terminating a service agreement with the employment service

Section 9 of the Divorce Act states that when a decree of divorce is granted on the grounds of the irretrievable break down of a marriage, the court may make an order that the patrimonial benefits of the marriage be forfeited by one party in favour of the other, either wholly or in part, if the court, having regard to the duration of the marriage, the circumstances which gave rise to the breakdown thereof and any substantial misconduct on the party of either of the parties, is satisfied that one party will be unduly benefited should an order for forfeiture not be made.

Where a debtor has a contractual obligation to pay an amount of money on a stipulated date and the debtor fails to perform in terms of this obligation, the creditor will have a claim for interest on the outstanding amount, known as mora interest.

Contracting out of liability for patent and latent defects is commonly described as a “voetstoots” clause.

Email disclaimers are so widely used that most people do not even pay attention to their content.

In the case of Western Platinum Refinery Ltd v Hlebela & Others (2015), the Labour Appeal Court confirmed that an employee who is bound implicitly by a duty of good faith towards the employer, breaches that duty by remaining silent about knowledge possessed by the employee regarding the business interests of the employee being improperly undermined.