“You can be a good neighbour only if you have good neighbours” (Howard E. Koch, playwright) You decide – for whatever reason – that your neighbour’s new guesthouse is definitely not first prize in your sleepy and peaceful suburb, so you investigate. You find out that the local municipal zoning scheme doesn’t allow anyone to…
“Running into debt isn’t so bad. It’s running into creditors that hurts” (Unknown) Debts prescribe (become uncollectable) after a specified period of time – 3 years for most run-of-the-mill debts but 30 years for others such as judgment debts, mortgage bond debts, property rates and tax debts. Various other periods apply to specific statutory debts…
“… you are going to be a very sorry man you (sic) probably going to sit in jail tonight” (a “dirty dozen threat” quoted in the judgment below) When we hear of employers and employees at loggerheads with each other in our court system, we normally think of labour disputes – strikes, disciplinary hearings, unfair…
“It has regrettably become all too common in divorce litigation that allegations are traded back and forth between the parties, with scant regard for the obligation to comply with orders issued by the court … The rights of the child become relegated to matters of secondary, or sometimes no importance, while the battle between the…
Stress – it’s good for us up to a point, but an overload won’t just reduce our work performance and make our lives a misery, it’ll eventually kill us. Where’s the balance? Have a look at Uplift’s ‘Stress:Performance Curve’ in “The Difference between Good Stress and Bad Stress” here. Then take 39 seconds to watch…
“It is declared that, upon transfer of a property, a new owner is not liable for debts arising before transfer from the charge upon the property …” (Constitutional Court Order) How does the recent Constitutional Court decision on “historical rates” affect you in practice? Understanding the issue At issue was that some municipalities would force…
“Crying wolf is a real danger” (David Attenborough) POPI (the Protection of Personal Information Act) will provide welcome protection for our personal information – our names, ID numbers, addresses, medical histories and so on. But the other side of the coin is that it will expose small businesses in particular to a whole new raft…
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law” (wise old idiom) Optic fibre is bringing “superfast broadband” to an exponentially-increasing number of South African homes and businesses. And competition in the field is fierce. Which is great for us as consumers, but if you live or work in a “community scheme” there’s a catch. How does your…
“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome” (Isaac Asimov) If you don’t want to be kept artificially alive – without your consent and perhaps in pain and distress – long after your medical condition becomes hopeless, you need to communicate your decision now to the doctors, hospitals and loved ones who…
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance” (George Bernard Shaw) “Fake News” is big business in 2017. Social Media in particular is increasingly awash with it because it is so easily propagated via unsuspecting readers duped into endorsing and sharing it. The problem is that our brains are literally programmed to get…