Who inherits the house of a man who was married to but separated from one woman and in a long-term partnership with another?

06 Feb 2023 | SA Migration

The short answer 

It may be that your mother and children and the separated wife and her children are both entitled to inherit. 

The whole question

My mother, my siblings and I lived with my father in his house although he was married to another woman. There is a lobola letter for my mother. Can we change the title deed to my or my mother's name? 

The long answer

The Constitutional Court ruled in December 2021 in the Bwanya case that life partners must have the same rights as married people, and that Parliament must change the Intestate Succession Act and the Maintenance of Surviving Spouses Act within 18 months so that life partners are not discriminated against on the basis of not being married. In the meantime, these laws must be read to include life partners as spouses. 

The problem is that your late father did not divorce his wife, and so she would automatically have a claim to 50% of the joint estate, because a civil marriage in community of property means the surviving spouse inherits 50% of the joint estate set up by their marriage. A customary marriage is also automatically in community of property, unless the spouses take out an ante-nuptial contract before their marriage.

The Intestate Succession Act (which is the law that is applied when a person does not leave a will) says that the spouse or spouses inherit the greater of R250,000 per spouse or a child’s share, and the children the balance of the estate. A child’s share is determined by dividing the intestate estate by the number of surviving children of the deceased and deceased children who have left issue, plus the number of surviving spouses.

So it may be that your mother and her children and the separated wife and her children are both entitled to inherit. If this is the case, it would probably mean that the house would have to be sold to pay both women and their children.

In terms of the Maintenance of Surviving Spouses Act, a surviving spouse (or life partner now) is entitled to claim against the deceased estate as follows: 

“If a marriage is dissolved by death after the commencement of this Act the survivor shall have a claim against the estate of the deceased spouse for the provision of her reasonable maintenance needs until her death or remarriage in so far as she is not able to provide therefor from her own means and earnings.”

In other words, maintenance is not automatic – it depends on the circumstances of the surviving spouse. As the other spouse has her own house, it may be unlikely that she would be able to successfully claim maintenance from the deceased estate.

And as your mother is living in your late father’s house with her children while the other spouse has her own house, the other spouse would not need her late husband’s house for accommodation.

But is this a situation of two spouses who have equal claims to the deceased estate, or does it make a difference that there was a separation? These are questions that you will need to put to the Master of the High Court, who supervises and administers deceased estates.

You and your mother should take your father’s death certificate, his ID and your own IDs and the children’s birth certificates and any documentation about the house, to the Master of the High Court and ask for assistance. 

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How can I get legal permission to work in South Africa?

SA Migration | 06 Feb 2023

The short answer 

Legal permission to work in South Africa is accessed by getting a visa. In you case it can be a relatives visa, spousal visa or life partner visa 

The whole question

How I, a Zimbabwean man, can get a visa to be able to stay in South Africa and care for my seven-month-old child and her mother, when my critical skills visa expires in March and I cannot renew it as the skills list was changed this year.

The long answer

There are three possible visas:

• Relatives visa;

• Spousal visa;

• Life partner visa.

The Relatives visa:

You can apply for a relative’s visa if you are first kin (i.e. a parent or a spouse) to a South African. This is a temporary visa, usually issued for about two years. It is like a long tourist visa. You are not allowed to work and your South African partner has to be your sponsor and prove that they can support you in an amount of at least R8,500 per month. Thus, it may not be appropriate for you, as you need to support your partner and baby. 

Apart from the application form, the following documents have to be submitted for the relatives’ visa:

• Your passport, which is required to have at least one blank page for the insertion of the permit/visa;

• A yellow fever vaccination certificate, if applicable;

• Payment of the application fee (not required where the applicant is a spouse or dependent child of a South African citizen/permanent resident);

• A statement and/or documentation showing the purpose and duration of your visit (temporary residence visa applications);

• Proof of the relative’s relationship, such as birth certificates, marriage certificates etc;

• Police clearance certificate from each country in which you resided for 12 months or longer since the age of 18 years;

• Medical and radiology reports;

• The ID book and/or passport that proves the South African relative is indeed a citizen or permanent residency holder; and

• Documentation that proves the availability of at least R8,500 per month per person for financial assurance (a waiver can be applied for spouses or dependent minor children of a South African citizen/permanent resident to waive the minimum financial requirements).

Sa Migration.com notes that “The spouses, life partners and children (minor or major) of South African citizens and permanent residents can submit their relative visa applications in South Africa from a visitor’s visa, following the issuance of Directive 7 of 2019, implemented in July 2019.

"Unfortunately, this does not extend to parents of South Africans. Parents and other eligible relatives must submit their visa applications at an embassy or consulate abroad.”

You can apply for a relative’s permit, which is a permanent residence permit where you are allowed to work, study, or set up a business, but it can take a long time for this to be issued (normally about two years) and in the meantime you would have to keep applying for the temporary relative’s visa.

The Spousal Visa:

You can apply for a temporary spousal visa if you are married to a South African citizen or permanent resident. The spousal visa is normally given for two to three years. You are not allowed to work on the temporary visa but you can get the visa endorsed to allow you to work or study or start a business. The documents you have to submit are the following:

• A marriage certificate;

• Proof of your South African spouse’s citizenship or residence;

• A letter of support from your South African spouse;

• Proof of good health and standing;

• A completed temporary residency application form.

If you have been married for more than five years, you can apply for a spousal permit which is a permanent residence permit. That means you can work or study or start a business. But even if you qualify for a spousal permit, it can take two years for Home Affairs to issue it, so it might be safer to apply for the temporary spousal visa first. 

The Life Partner Visa:

Intergate Immigration notes that with a spousal visa you can simply prove the relationship with a marriage certificate, but it’s harder to prove the relationship for a life partner visa. Home Affairs says that “such relationship must be intended to be permanent, exclude any other person and involve cohabitation, an obligation of mutual emotional support between the parties and a reciprocal obligation to support one another financially …” 

Besides proving that there is both an emotional and financial bond, you would also need to provide affidavits or letters of support from family and friends, attesting to your relationship.  

You would need to prove that you share financial responsibilities, like bond or rent, electricity payments, etc. You would need to open a joint bank account to show that you will not become a burden on the state.

You can apply for endorsements to the life partner visa for work and study once you have got the visa. You are advised to renew it at least 20 to 24 weeks before it expires because if the visa expires, you could be deported and banned from re-entering the country for five years. Home Affairs is ordinarily very slow and currently, it could take 20 weeks to process from the date of submission in South Africa.

You can apply from South Africa if you have a visitor’s visa (generally issued for 90 days). Presumably you can apply from South Africa on your critical skills visa, as long as that is valid.

These are the documents you would have to submit:

• Valid passport with at least two free pages and valid for 30 days after the end of your visit;

• Photocopy of any temporary residence visas in the passport;

• Proof of your relationship and that you have lived together for two years before submitting the visa application;

• A joint bank account;

• Proof of a minimum of R8,500 per month per person;

• Police clearance certificates from any country you’ve lived in for a year or more since the age of 18;

• Documentation proving cohabitation and the extent to which the related financial responsibilities are shared by the parties;

• Medical Certificate – not older than 6 months from date of issuance;

• Radiological Report – not older than 6 months from date of issuance.

Since VFS Facilitation Centres started managing the submission process of all visas and permits for Home Affairs in 2014, Home Affairs officials do not generally conduct interviews, so you may not be asked to undergo an interview to prove the validity of your relationship.

But if Home Affairs has any doubts about the relationship at any stage, they could still request an interview. 

After five years of the life partner visa, you can apply for permanent residence if the relationship is ongoing.

Intergate Immigration says that it can take up to three years for Home Affairs to process life partner visa applications for permanent residence. So it is advisable to apply for a temporary visa in the meantime.

It seems to me (from the outside, of course) that the simplest one to apply for would be the spousal visa, if you were married.

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Five ways tourism needs to improve to attract Chinese travellers

 01 February 2023 – Business Day

Return of visitors from China can give global tourism and retail sectors the economic boost they need so badly

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, China was the world’s largest source of outbound tourists, who took 170-million trips and contributed $253bn to the global economy in 2019.

In 2023, Chinese travellers are projected to take 110-million international trips, two-thirds of the 2019 level, according to the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute (Cotri), which provides consulting and training on the Chinese outbound market.

The return of Chinese travellers is the economic boost that the global tourism and retail sectors have been missing. According to a sentiment survey compiled in December by data and marketing agency Dragon Trail International, more than half of polled travellers from mainland China indicated they would be ready to travel as soon as restrictions were removed, and 32% planned to travel within two years; more than half indicated that they planned to spend more on travel over the next year than they did before Covid-19.

But there’s a caveat: destinations hoping to cash in again will need to take a fresh approach that speaks to the Chinese traveller who has spent three years away from the world.

“The Chinese outbound tourist will not be the same as they were before; you have to prepare and adapt for that,” says Wolfgang Georg Arlt, CEO at Cotri. “We have changed; China has changed.”

There’s time to prepare. Chinese tourists aren’t expected to travel far in large numbers until the second half of the year. China’s group tour package sales ban, enacted in the pandemic’s early days, has yet to lift. Prices are up — way up. Visa processing will be a bottleneck because foreign consulates reduced staff. Major airlines will also need time to resume flights.

“There may be pent-up demand that drives more flights, but the schedules into April and beyond are still quite speculative at this moment,” says Mike Arnot, a spokesperson for Cirium, an aviation analytics company. China state television reported that US and Chinese airlines have submitted applications to resume up to 700 flights per week from 34 countries.

Until then, here are five major adjustments that destinations and brands need to consider in connection with global tourism’s biggest market.

Serve Diverse Travellers

A mistake that will prove costly to destinations and businesses is to cling to the dated perception that all Chinese tourists are the same. “Any answer to the question, ‘What are the Chinese people doing?’ is wrong,” says Arlt. 

Sienna Parulis-Cook, director of communications at Dragon Trail International, agrees that the travel industry should better prepare for understanding that China’s outbound travel market is not monolithic. “It’s very segmented,” she says. The first wave of long-haul travellers in 2023 will be experienced independent travellers, including millennials, Gen-Z and luxury travellers, adds Parulis-Cook.

While some will visit neighbouring Asian countries because they’re easy to get to, inexpensive and familiar, others will seek new destinations. “The game is no longer to go where everybody goes, but to discover and find new places that not so many Chinese have visited before,” says Arlt.

Let go of mass tourism

Directly related to increasing market segmentation will be a diminished role for mass tourism. It won’t disappear entirely, but big group sightseeing tours will probably appeal only to Chinese travellers from smaller cities who’ve never travelled, says Arlt.

Residents from China’s largest cities won’t be impressed with the big tour approach; they will laugh at you, Arlt says. “They’ve had three years’ time to dream about places and read up and talk to people — and look on Mafengwo or Qyer [two Chinese travel-planning sites] for ideas of where to go.”

This is really a chance to make a new first impression. Those first travellers’ experiences may have more influence on the travellers that come after them. So it’s an important moment.

Sienna Parulis-Cook  Dragon Trail International

The Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (aka Little Red Book) has increasingly become tied up with tourism trends for the younger market. Red Book has 200-million active users with disposable income, mostly women 18 to 35 years old. “It’s aspirational — a little bit like Instagram, but luxury,” says Parulis-Cook.

Live streaming, while not new in China, has also emerged as a trend in tourism marketing, she says, so showing what life is like in prospective places will prove useful. Nearly two-thirds of Chinese travellers surveyed by Dragon Trail said their top two reasons to travel abroad are to experience local food and local life.

For less-travelled destinations, this presents an opportunity. For example, Papua New Guinea is working with Cotri to attract Chinese travellers interested in niche local experiences. Arlt says his firm is also in talks with Canada to create a First Nations programme targeting the Chinese market. “All this is moving towards special-interest tourism — smaller groups with a higher spending,” he says.

Communicate on safety

After pricing, destination safety ranks as second in importance for Chinese travellers (63%), according to Dragon Trail. That’s not surprising, given the horrific wave of anti-Asian hate attacks globally, including in the US, Canada, Italy, Brazil and New Zealand, since the pandemic.

The safety factor will be critical for the first wave of Chinese independent travellers before mass tours resume; the latter at least offer the ability to feel more secure in a crowd. 

More than two-thirds of Chinese travellers ranked the US in December as the destination they consider least safe to visit, according to Dragon Trail. Other bottom-rankers in the survey: Israel, Peru, Chile, the UK and Spain.

“Chinese people are very sensitive if they are welcomed or not, because they see themselves not as Mr Lee or Mrs Wong but as Chinese — and what you do to them, you do to the Chinese,” says Arlt.

Even a slight perception that Chinese travellers could be subjected to racial abuse in a place and treated badly because they are Chinese, Arlt says, will have consequences. Chinese visits to the US fell nearly 11% from 2017 to 2019 during the Trump administration, which was hostile to China.

Tourism boards know to lay out the welcome carpet, and hotel managers will have to be conscious about training frontline workers to receive Chinese travellers after such a long pause. But the average resident’s attitude towards Chinese people will be more critical now, Arlt says. Tourism boards will have to do more marketing and education to improve general host perceptions, in addition to communicating that they are happy to have Chinese visitors back and to factor in ways to prevent incidents.

“This is really a chance to make a new first impression,” says Parulis-Cook. “Those first travellers’ experiences may have more influence on the travellers that come after them. So it’s an important moment.”

Offer Value-Packed Experiences

Before the pandemic, bragging about big spending was considered impressive, Arlt says, but what’s deemed impressive now is spending on experiences and learning by having done something, not merely flashing wealth. Value for money has become important to Chinese travellers, especially considering the increased costs of travel and the absence of discount tour packages. 

Previously popular destinations such as Los Angeles are receiving a much greater percentage of families travelling with multiple children, as well as a shift in demand from millennials and members of Gen-Z, such as groups of friends planning independent travel. “What they’re looking for is the authentic LA,” says Adam Burke, CEO at Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board, who adds that they look at what a local would do and seek to explore LA’s neighbourhoods in much more detail.

Travellers from China have also shown a greater willingness to pay more for greener choices than their European and American counterparts. Among Chinese travellers, 88% say they care about their impact on destinations and communities when travelling, according to Dragon Trail’s survey. For most Chinese travellers, the survey further reveals, sustainability could mean choosing a hotel with such environmentally friendly practices in place.

Reduce Visitor Visa Hurdles

Covid-19 testing is no issue for the Chinese, who are used to it. But simplifying the visa process — providing an e-visa, a visa on arrival or requiring none at all — would attract more Chinese travellers. Convenience ranked as the third-most-important factor in the Dragon Trail survey.

That makes destinations such as the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar, Turkey and Ecuador, among other places, well positioned to receive Chinese visitors in 2023. South Korea and Japan, destinations popular among Chinese travellers, are in a pickle for having imposed severe entry restrictions on Chinese travellers; China has retaliated with visitor visa bans.  

“The visa wait times are going to be the single greatest impediment to the recovery of Chinese visitation to the US,” says Burke, who also sits on the US Travel Association’s board and was just named to the department of commerce’s US travel and tourism advisory board.

Despite the view that the US is least safe, America’s brand remains strong among Chinese travellers. Searches from China about visiting the US were among the highest in January, according to online travel agency Trip.com, though the average wait time for a visa is about 400 days for non-waiver countries, Burke says.

Still, as long as immigration and other entry impediments remain, Chinese travellers may choose to steer clear of those destinations. “One thing is the convenience,” says Parulis- Cook, “and one thing is the feeling of friendliness and welcome.”