News & Updates

Profile of the Month – Mel Coetzee

Jan 30, 2026

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Looking back on your career, do you have a funny story to share?

Looking back at my career, as with all seasoned practitioners, I have many funny stories to share!

When I was still an inexperienced conveyancer, I once accepted a cheque drawn on a foreign bank for payment of a rather large purchase price. Little did I know that one could not present such a cheque for payment locally…. I had to connect with a banker at the bank in France and had to fly there to present the cheque for payment! Quite a palava. I also once had to negotiate the cession of an airplane in lieu of a property purchase price. And once also the inclusion of a horse as part of the price! You see funny things as a conveyancer.

What exciting trends do you see in the property industry?

Now that South Africa has been removed from the UN’s Grey-List, an immediate uptake of foreign investment has taken place and will continue into the near foreseeable future. South Africa is now more attractive than ever for investors from abroad and with the ZAR stability, our country is once again seen as financially stable. The lifting of the sanctions has also meant that other foreign companies will return with their business such as call centres and manufacturing, all of which will boost the property industry and in turn, lead to the stabilisation of inflation with interest rate reductions looking a lot more likely than before.

What advice would you give to someone starting out in the industry?

My advice to someone just starting out would be to accept, from the “get-go” that you will start right at the bottom and that practice looks very different to the University textbooks. No attorney becomes successful without learning the bare basics of practice: from understanding budgets, what secretarial employees do on files, doing those things yourself and never, ever expect any advancement in practice without being willing to go the extra 1000 miles on a junior level. Also, young attorneys find it difficult to understand how to generate income in practice and how much relationship building it takes over many years in order to gain sufficient reputational trust for clients to entrust you with their business. Hang in there, even if you feel in the first few years that you are a glorified filer in an offer. Some other advice which I can give and which stood me in good stead at the onset of my career in 2001 is NOT to diddle dawdle when writing admissions and the conveyancing and notarial exams. Try and do them all together. This is one of the single most impressive feats we see when appointing young attorneys: the hunger and the drive to succeed!

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