The Master of the High Court is not a single office you phone. It is a branch of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development running fifteen regional offices plus a national office, and the rule that governs almost every enquiry is this: you must contact the specific office where the matter was reported, not the national office and not whichever office is closest to you today. The department states this explicitly at the top of its own contact list. Phoning the wrong office does not get the matter transferred; it gets you told to phone the right one. Which office is correct depends on where the deceased or the affected person was living, so establish that first. Complaints follow a fixed ladder inside the office concerned before they go anywhere else. Every number, mailbox and address below is taken from the department’s official Master contacts page at justice.gov.za.
Official contact channels
Regional Master’s Office switchboards, as published by the department:
- Bloemfontein: 051 411 5500 (insolvency 051 411 5511, Guardian’s Fund 051 411 5507 or 5578) — [email protected]
- Bhisho: 040 608 6600, or 040 639 2087 / 2079
- Cape Town: 021 832 3000 (Guardian’s Fund 021 832 3014)
- Durban: 031 327 0600 — [email protected]
- Grahamstown (Makhanda): 046 603 4000 (Guardian’s Fund 046 603 4004) — [email protected]
- Johannesburg: 011 429 8000, 011 429 1001 or 011 429 8004
- Kimberley: 053 831 1942, which is also the Guardian’s Fund number — [email protected]
- Mahikeng (Mmabatho): 018 381 4122 or 018 381 8585
- Mbombela: 013 101 3721
- Middelburg: 013 282 5347, 013 283 7585 or 7586
- Mthatha: 047 531 2120, or 047 532 3432 / 3564
- Pietermaritzburg: 033 264 7000 (Guardian’s Fund helpdesk 033 264 7046 or 7027) — [email protected]
- Polokwane: 015 230 6000
- Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha): 041 403 5100
- Pretoria: 012 339 3333 or 012 339 7700 (Guardian’s Fund customer care 012 339 7794 or 7729)
- Thohoyandou: 015 962 1032 — [email protected]
- National Office, Office of the Chief Master: 012 406 4804
Two trust mailboxes are handled centrally rather than by region: documents for terminated trusts go to [email protected], and documents for dormant trusts to [email protected].
Services and responsibilities
The department describes the Master’s Branch as serving the public in five main divisions: deceased estates, liquidations and insolvent estates, the registration of trusts, curators and tutors, and administration of the Guardian’s Fund for minors and persons lacking legal capacity. The common thread the department gives is protecting the financial interests of people whose assets are being managed by somebody else. That framing tells you which division to ask for when you call, and it explains why several offices publish a separate direct line for the Guardian’s Fund and for insolvency rather than routing everything through the switchboard.
Office and address information
Public office hours differ by office and most close to the public in the early afternoon. Bloemfontein and Bhisho are open 08h00 to 16h00; Cape Town 08h00 to 13h00; Durban 07h45 to 13h00; Pietermaritzburg 07h45 to 16h00; Mbombela 08h00 to 14h00. Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth open 07h45 to 13h00 and state that afternoon visits between 13h45 and 16h15 are for urgent matters by appointment only. Kimberley, Mahikeng, Mthatha and Thohoyandou reopen for an afternoon session. The Pretoria office moved from the SALU Building at 316 Thabo Sehume Street to 351 Francis Baard Street, Pretoria, 0002, with effect from 1 June 2026 — check the current address before travelling. Full postal, physical and Docex addresses for every office are published on the department’s Master contacts page.
Applications and escalation
The department publishes a fixed escalation sequence, and skipping a step is the most common reason a complaint stalls. Lodge the complaint with the Assistant Master handling the matter first, then the Deputy Master, and then the Head of Office. Only if you are still not satisfied does it go to the Office of the Chief Master, where a named complaints management contact is published on the Master contacts page. Because the ladder is internal to the office that holds your file, you need the office name and your reference number before any of it works.
Two warnings the department itself publishes are worth repeating. First, it states that the website chiefmaster.co.za is not a legitimate or official departmental or Master’s website and dissociates itself from the content published there. Second, operational notices dated 22 July 2026 record that the telephones at both the Bhisho and Pretoria offices were out of order; if a listed number does not connect, check the operational notices before assuming the number has changed.
Sources
All contact details, office hours and notices on this page were read from the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development’s official Master of the High Court pages at justice.gov.za on 30 August 2026. Nothing has been taken from a third-party directory. Individual officials’ personal email addresses published on that page are deliberately not reproduced here; contact the office switchboard instead. Confirm anything critical against justice.gov.za before relying on it.