Nkomonde says she will abide by court's decision and won't oppose application

More than half of the complaints that lawyer Nonhle Nkomonde faces are of cases she handled before she was admitted as an attorney. 

Out of the 27 complaints that have been brought before the Legal Practice Council (LPC), 16 of them were registered between August 2018 and July 2022.

According to the LPC, Nkomonde was admitted as an attorney on October 8 2022. 

Most of the complaints against her relate to her alleged mismanagement of property transfers money and deceased estates funds. The LPC has since brought a court application to have her removed from the roll. 

According to the LPC's court application, Nkomonde failed to respond when she was asked by the regulator to explain the complaints against her. 

In her reply to the application, Nkomonde said she will abide by the court's decision and that she will not oppose the application. 

“I, after careful consideration and on the legal advice given to me by aforesaid attorney, do not wish to oppose the application by the applicant and I submit and concur with my said attorney, I'm not fit and proper person to practice as an attorney, given the allegations contained in applicants' founding papers,” she wrote.

One of her earlier cases was when she was hired by the family of Siyanda Mkhize in 2018 following his conviction and a life sentence he received for murder and robbery he committed in Johannesburg in 2016. The family allegedly paid her just over R60,000 to appeal the court's decision.

Mkhize is currently in jail in the Free State. 

Mkhize's cousin Lundi Nsele told Sowetan that Nkomonde disappeared after she was paid and has never consulted or met Mkhize. “We decided to use Nkomonde because she once assisted one of our relatives legally. We initially paid her R15,000 because she told us that's how much it would cost to appeal the case. 

Nsele said months passed with not movement on the appeal.

We met her again and she said she was struggling to get my cousin court records from court. She said she needed R20,000 to go and visit my cousin in prison and consult with him. We paid the money in cash and we later found out that the meeting with my cousin never happened.

—  Lundi Nsele

“We met her again and she said she was struggling to get my cousin court records from court. She said she needed R20,000 to go and visit my cousin in prison and consult with him. We paid the money in cash and we later found out that the meeting with my cousin never happened,” said Nsele. 

She said the family wanted Mkhize to be transferred to a jail in Gauteng so they can visit him. 

“She said she'd assist with our request and she asked for more money which we paid. We never heard from her again and my cousin is still in jail and we have ran out of money,” said Nsele.

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