A dispute over an R834,000 pension fund death benefit has ended with the Office of the Pension Funds Adjudicator siding with a deceased woman’s long-term life partner and dismissing objections raised by her brother.
Deputy Pension Funds Adjudicator Naheem Essop ruled that the Lifestyle Retirement Annuity Fund acted lawfully and reasonably when it allocated the entire benefit to the deceased member’s partner, identified as GB, despite claims from family members that the couple had never been legally married.
The complaint stemmed from the death of fund member CD in 2020. Although she had nominated her estate as the sole beneficiary of her retirement annuity, the benefit became subject to Section 37C of the Pension Funds Act, which requires trustees to identify and distribute benefits among a deceased member’s dependants in an equitable manner.
Three years after her death, her brother, JD, approached the adjudicator challenging both the handling of the claim and the eventual allocation of the funds.
According to the brother, the deceased and GB were never legally married, nor was their marriage registered with the Department of Home Affairs. He maintained that the family had witnessed a ceremony that was explicitly understood to be a religious “blessing” for the couple to live together, rather than a legally binding marriage. He further argued that GB was not financially dependent on his late sister and had already received payouts from her other policies.
Submissions from the Lifestyle Retirement Annuity Fund revealed a prolonged and complex investigation that began immediately after the deceased’s death. The fund received notification of her passing in late December 2020 and spent the next several years attempting to establish her living arrangements, verify whether she had any children, and trace potential dependants.
The timeline submitted by the fund showed that its claims department faced hurdles in gathering the necessary documentation. In December 2021, the complainant himself confirmed to the fund that he was not financially dependent on his sister and also stated that she had been living with GB.
When the fund eventually traced GB, he informed the fund that he had not been financially dependent on his late partner. However, the board of trustees concluded that he qualified as a legal dependant under the law.
Unhappy with the outcome, the brother challenged the decision, but the board maintained that it had exercised its legally mandated discretion in an equitable and just manner.
In his legal analysis, Essop cited established legal precedents, which clarify that cohabiting partners qualify as factual dependants provided, they share a common household and maintain a permanent relationship of mutual dependency, regardless of whether a legal marriage certificate exists.
Because the brother had previously confirmed that his sister had no children and no other financial dependants, GB was identified as the deceased’s sole permanent life partner and only legal dependant.
“On the complainant’s own version, the deceased and GB lived together, and their relationship and living arrangements were blessed by the church,” Essop noted in the ruling. “The Act includes permanent life partners as spouses.”
As a result, Essop ruled that the board of the Lifestyle Retirement Annuity Fund had exercised its discretion properly and dismissed the brother’s complaint.
