Bringing formalisation ‘to the people’: deceased estates as a post-apartheid legal field

Journal article

Abstract:: In matters of inheritance, post-apartheid transformation has meant extending formal administrative arrangements previously for a privileged minority to all South Africans. That formalisation is hampered by the distance between popular ideas of proper inheritance and formal intestate succession rules, exacerbated by a confusing system. Yet a wide range of legal practitioners see the formalisation of inheritance as increasing popular access in the public good. Focusing on Johannesburg, this article explores deceased estates assistance for the historically marginalised. Legal assistance for marginalised people is often depicted as adversarial, positioned against an uncaring system. By contrast, this article argues that inheritance work reveals a distinctly post-apartheid field of collaboration. It traces how a common project unites legal practitioners ranging from state officials to attorneys, non-governmental organisation-based practitioners, and community advice officers. In the name of bringing formalisation ‘to the people’, they converge on exhorting South Africans to engage with legal administration by formalising and planning their affairs – in short, preparing them as citizens for the system. This is thrown into particular relief in wills advice. From public education by officials to workshops where lawyers and paralegals explain and draft wills, testation is presented as bringing the system closer to people’s own priorities.

Files:: Bolt_2026_Bringing_formalisation_to.pdf

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Language:: English
Keywords:: property inheritance

formalisation

bureaucracy

legal administration

legal assistance

legal field

Johannesburg

post-apartheid South Africa
Pubs id:: 2351365
UUID:: uuid_f7ce2cbe-7c47-420e-8614-732e3aea9bbd
Local pid:: pubs:2351365
Deposit date:: 2025-12-18
ARK identifier:: ark:/29072/ora_f7ce2cbe7c47420e8614732e3aea9bbd

Copyright holder:: Maxim Bolt
Rights statement:: © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work isproperly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository bythe author(s) or with their consent.

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