Will my ex inherit my belongings if we did not submit the divorce decree to Home Affairs? And can we remarry?

The long answer

Thank you for your email asking i) if your ex-husband will inherit your belongings if you die, as you did not submit your decree of divorce to Home Affairs, and ii) whether you should remarry, as you are now trying to put your relationship back together.

i) You need to have your decree of divorce registered at Home Affairs to change your status on their system to “divorced”, so you should submit a certified copy of the decree of divorce to them. Home Affairs is supposed to take three months to issue a certificate of divorce after you have submitted your decree of divorce to them, but they take much longer to issue a divorce certificate, especially since Covid.

If you made a will before you divorced in which you left your belongings to your husband, and you then died within three months of the divorce without changing your will, he would not inherit, as the legal system grants a person three months to change their will after a divorce. But if you didn’t change your will and died after three months of your divorce, the courts would take it that you wanted your ex-husband to inherit your belongings.

But a will cannot change the divorce settlement agreement or divorce order. It is the divorce order or decree that lays down how the property and assets are divided between the ex-spouses. So, for example, if you were married in community of property, the divorce order would automatically give you and your ex-husband each 50% of the joint estate, unless you and your ex-husband had jointly agreed on an alternative settlement agreement that was submitted to the court for its consideration. The court would consider whether it was a fair and equitable plan before making the settlement agreement an order of court.  

ii) Once you are divorced, you are free to marry other partners, and, as far as I could ascertain, there is no objection to former spouses marrying again. However, all the necessary documentation, including the certificate of divorce, would have to be obtained from Home Affairs first, and that might take quite some time.

Wishing you the best,
Athalie