Men Only! Family Feud Over Will

Five sisters want their sons to be able to inherit land which has been awarded to their male cousins

IT SOUNDS like the plot of a gripping book or a thrilling TV series: valuable land in the Little Karoo in the Western Cape, cousins who grew up together but no longer speak to each other, and a grandfather who rules with an iron will from the grave.

Yet this happens to be the true life drama which recently played out in the high court in Cape Town.

When Carel Johannes Cornelis de Jager and his wife, Catharine Dorothea, drew up their final will and testament in November 1902 they couldn’t have dreamt that three generations later it would divide their family.

Carel, a successful farmer from Oudtshoorn, stipulated that when he died his farms at the foot of the Swartberg mountains were to be divided between his four sons and two daughters.

But determined to ensure his extensive land remained in the control of blood family, he added a clause that’s now proving to be the source of much heartache for his great-grandchildren. He dictated that after his children died the land could be left only to male descendants, meaning girls born into the family would get nothing.

When his grandson Kalvyn de Jager died in 2015 – after years of farming the land – with no male heirs, Kalvyn’s five daughters – Surina Serfontein (66), Elna Slabber (62), Trudene Forword (58), Kalene Roux (55) and Annelie Jordaan (52) – were upset at the prospect of losing the property.

Desperate to keep it in their branch of the family, they went to court and challenged their great-grandfather’s will on the grounds that it’s discriminatory, and asked that the land be allowed to pass down to their male children.

But their three cousins – brothers Albertus (70), Arnoldus (67) and Johan de Jager (68) – opposed their legal action. They say the will spells out that Kalvyn’s land should be transferred to them.