In spite of a family's objections, a woman's boyfriend was awarded her R834,000 death benefit.
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.
