The Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development answered Parliament in writing on 24 February 2026. The Department keeps no statistics on how many estates are currently open. A companion reply added three more gaps: the Department does not track which offices exceed a six-month turnaround, has no approved caseload ratio for estate controllers, and has not determined the average workload each official carries.
The Department’s explanation is that the Master regulates and supervises an estate rather than administering it. That work belongs to the executor, or to the agent appointed to act for them. On that reading a matter can run for years without being a backlog, because an open file is not a late file.
The Department did acknowledge the lack of efficiency in many offices, and pointed to work already under way: a staffing study, a review aimed at cutting red tape, and a move from paper to digital.
So when anyone quotes you a number of months, ask where the number came from. It did not come from the Master.
Nobody in the system measures how long an estate should take, which is why an honest practitioner gives you a range and not a date. Judge progress by what has actually been issued, and keep dated proof of everything you lodge.