Armify Become a partner
A desk stacked with files and forms

Guides / Inherited a firearm? What the executor and heirs must do

Inherited a firearm? What the executor and heirs must do

The executor's duties, the 14-day notice, and how heirs keep or sell the firearm.

Checked against the Act on 9 November 2026. This guide explains the law in plain words; it isn't legal advice.

When someone dies, their firearms don’t simply pass to the family. The executor of the estate is responsible for them until each firearm is licensed to someone new, sold or handed in.

  1. Day 0 Death

    Nominated executor can hold the firearms on a temporary authorisation.

  2. Appointment Executor appointed

    Firearms stored in a safe that meets the rules.

  3. Within 14 days Notify SAPS

    Inventory, storage, death notice, heirs, appointment.

  4. Every 3 months Progress reports

    Until every firearm is dealt with.

  5. At the end Estate can close

    Only once SAPS confirms all firearms are transferred.

Before the executor is appointed

The person nominated as executor (or, if there isn’t one, an heir, next of kin or close relative) can hold the firearms under a temporary authorisation (section 21, form SAPS 518) until letters of executorship are issued (regulation 103).

The executor’s duties

  1. Store the firearms safely, in a safe that meets the rules (regulation 86). If the executor has no safe, a licensed heir may store them, with a letter of consent from the executor, a copy filed with the DFO where the heir lives.
  2. Notify SAPS within 14 days of being appointed, with:
    • an inventory of the firearms
    • where they’re stored
    • the death notice
    • the beneficiaries
    • proof of appointment
  3. Report progress at least every three months.
  4. Finalise the firearms before the estate. The Master won’t close the estate until SAPS confirms every firearm has been transferred (regulation 103).

If you’re the heir

Keep Keep it

Apply for a licence in your own name. You need competency and a safe.

Sell Sell it

Through a licensed dealer, or privately to a licensed buyer.

Let go Deactivate or hand in

Have it deactivated, or surrender it to SAPS.

In more detail, you can:

  • Keep it: apply for a licence for it in your own name, like any licence. You need a competency certificate and a safe (section 148(1)). See how to apply.
  • Sell it: through a licensed dealer, or privately to someone who holds a licence for it (section 31).
  • Have it deactivated or hand it in.

SAPS can give you a temporary authorisation with reasonable time to sell or dispose of it (section 148(2)).

If the licence had already expiredAfter the Constitutional Court’s Fidelity judgment, firearms with lapsed licences can still be licensed again. Read about expired licences.
Sources
  1. Firearms Control Act 60 of 2000, consolidated (SAFLII)
  2. Firearms Control Regulations, GN R.345 of 2004 (PDF)