For an attorney, the Government Gazette is a working document. It is where a deceased estate is advertised, where a sequestration order is published, where a company liquidation and the appointment of its liquidator appear, and where a sale in execution is given notice. The information you need is genuinely public — but it is buried in weekly PDF editions running to hundreds of notices each, with no index of names, ID numbers or estate numbers. This guide is a practical walkthrough of the searches that matter to a legal practice, and how a structured gazette database turns a manual hunt into a single lookup.
What the gazette holds for a legal practice
- Deceased estates — advertised under the Administration of Estates Act 66 of 1965, including the section 29 notice to creditors and the section 35 account lying for inspection. These tell you an estate is open, who the executor is, and the windows that matter for filing claims.
- Insolvencies and sequestrations — published under the Insolvency Act 24 of 1936, covering provisional and final sequestration orders and the appointment of trustees.
- Company liquidations and business rescue — the winding-up of a company and the appointment of the liquidator, plus business-rescue notices that affect enforcement.
- Sales in execution — notices of court-ordered sales of attached or bonded property, central to bond-recovery and judgment-enforcement practice.
- Curator appointments and name changes — curator bonis appointments and official name-change notices that surface in due-diligence work.
The value to a practice is not just knowing a notice exists — it is being able to find the person behind it: the executor to file a claim with, the trustee to lodge proof of claim, the liquidator to contact. That is the difference between a notice and an action.
The searches that matter — and what each answers
- ID number search. Enter a 13-digit South African ID and see every gazette appearance for that person — estate, insolvency, sale — across the whole record.
- Name search. Search a person or company by name across all notice types when you don't have an ID number to hand.
- Estate number search. Go straight to a specific estate by its number to pull the notice and the executor's details.
- Company / CK number search. Check a company by its registration number for liquidation or business-rescue notices.
- Deep (full-text) search. Search the raw text of every gazette when the thing you're looking for — an address, a firm, a reference — doesn't fit a structured field.
- Find a professional. Search the directory of executors, trustees, liquidators and sheriffs by name to see how active they are, where they operate, and how to reach them.
Why doing this by hand is the wrong use of an attorney's time
1. There is no name index. A gazette PDF is not searchable the way you need. Finding one estate among hundreds of notices means reading, and reading is slow and easy to get wrong — particularly when a missed notice means a missed claim.
2. The record is enormous. Relevant notices stretch back two decades across thousands of editions. The estate, sequestration or sale you need might be in any of them.
3. The contact you actually need is hard to extract. Even when you find the notice, pulling the executor's or trustee's name and contact details out of the surrounding text — and confirming you have the right professional — is its own task.
4. It is billable time spent on the wrong thing. Every half-hour spent hunting a PDF is half an hour not spent on the legal work only you can do.
How a structured database changes the workflow
- Start from what you have — an ID, a name, an estate number, a CK number — and get every matching notice in one result.
- See the whole picture for a party — all of a person's gazette appearances together, so a single ID search tells you at once whether someone is deceased, sequestrated, or has property under execution.
- Get to the professional — the executor, trustee or liquidator named in the notice, with the contact details needed to file or lodge.
- Keep a party under watch — add an ID to a watchlist and receive an email alert if a new notice ever matches.
- Open a case — consolidate everything on one person into a single profile with a timeline, notes and status.
What it costs — and why pricing fits a small practice
Gazette Search is priced for professional, occasional-to-regular use rather than as a per-search legal lookup that can run R500 or more elsewhere. The model is prepaid credits — one credit per search, however many results that search returns — and, importantly, on single-search and professional packs you are not charged for a search that returns no result. Checking whether a party has been sequestrated and finding nothing is a perfectly good answer, and you should not pay for it.
Reference points for a small practice:
- 5 free searches to try it, with no card required — and a search that finds nothing doesn't use one up.
- Single — R35 for one search, for a one-off lookup after your free searches — and you're only charged if it returns a result.
- Starter — 100 credits for R1,000 (R10 a search), aimed at solo attorneys and ad-hoc estate work.
- Pro — 2,500 credits for R15,000 (R6 a search), for small firms doing this regularly, with an optional watchlist for monitoring.
Credits stay valid for 12 months, and auto-refill takes 10% off if you want a standing monthly top-up.
The bottom line
The Government Gazette is one of the most useful public records an attorney has for estates, insolvency, liquidation and bond-recovery work — and one of the most painful to use by hand, because it has no name index and stretches back decades. A structured, searchable database turns it into a single lookup: start from an ID, name or estate number, see every matching notice, get straight to the executor or trustee you need to contact, and keep a party under watch or a matter in one case file.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find a deceased estate in the Government Gazette?
Search by the deceased's 13-digit ID number, by name, or by the estate number. Gazette Search returns the matching notice and, where the gazette names them, the executor's details — so you can move straight from finding the estate to filing a claim.
Can I find the executor, trustee or liquidator behind a notice?
Yes. Results surface the contact details of the executor, trustee or liquidator where the gazette names them, and there is a searchable directory of executors, trustees, liquidators and sheriffs you can search and sort by name to confirm you have the right professional.
Do I pay for a gazette search that returns no result?
No — on the free tier and the single-search and professional packs (Single through Pro), a search that returns no result is not charged. That matters for an attorney: confirming that a party has not been sequestrated and finding nothing is a perfectly good answer, and you should not pay for it.
How far back does the gazette coverage go?
Gazette Search indexes more than 900,000 notices spanning roughly two decades (since 2004), so a single ID or name search reaches across the whole record rather than a single edition.
What does Gazette Search cost for a solo attorney?
There are 5 free searches to start, with no card required. After that it is prepaid credits — one credit per search, valid 12 months — from R35 for a single search, R10 a search on the Starter pack (100 credits for R1,000), down to R6 a search on the Pro pack (2,500 credits for R15,000). On these packs a search that finds nothing is not charged.