An antenuptial contract is not a document you keep and hope to find again. It is registered at a deeds registry, and it stays registered whether or not the copy in your file survived the move. Twenty years after the wedding, with no idea which attorney drew it or which office it went to, the contract is still on the register and still findable. What you have lost is your copy, not the contract.
This matters most at the worst possible time: during a divorce, when an estate is being wound up, or when a bank wants to know whether an asset is jointly owned before it will lend against it.
What an ANC is, on the register
An antenuptial contract executed before the marriage and registered at a deeds registry within the period the law allows determines the matrimonial property regime, most commonly out of community of property, with or without accrual. Registration is what makes it enforceable against third parties, which is precisely why a bank or an executor asks to see it rather than taking your word for the regime.
Registered contracts carry a document number in the form K1234/2005, and once registered they sit in the registry alongside title deeds and bonds. That is the reason they can be found decades later without knowing anything about who drew them.
Finding it without the number
Most people looking for a lost ANC do not have the K number, which is the thing a document search normally needs. There are two routes past that.
The direct one is the instant person document search at R85. Search on an ID number or names, and it returns the documents registered against that person, with their numbers. If an antenuptial contract is on the register under that person, this is what surfaces it and it comes back in minutes.
The other is the instant person search at R235, which lists both property and marriage contracts registered to a person nationally. It costs more because it covers more, and it is the right choice when you are building a picture of someone's registered position rather than hunting one document.
Both search across all eleven deeds registries, which matters here more than it does for property. An ANC was registered wherever the attorney lodged it, which need not be anywhere near where the couple lived then or lives now.
Getting the contract itself
Once you have the K number, you have a choice, and it is the same choice that applies to title deeds.
An information copy of the contract at R685 is the document, delivered in one to ten working days. It tells you exactly what was agreed: whether accrual applies, what was excluded, what the commencement values were. For reading it, understanding it, or showing it to your own attorney, this is what you want.
A certified copy at R995 is the same document with the registry's certification on it, issued in two to three weeks. This is what a court, a bank or the Master's office will ask for, because they need a version whose provenance does not depend on you. If the contract is going to be produced in divorce proceedings or in an estate, order the certified copy and order it early. Three weeks is a long time to discover you started too late.
Where the contract is already electronically available and you have its number, the instant document download at R640 returns it in minutes. That is worth checking first, because when it works it is both faster and cheaper than the information copy.
What the register cannot tell you
The register holds the contract. It does not hold an opinion about the contract. Whether a particular asset falls inside or outside the accrual, how commencement values are adjusted for inflation, and what happens where a contract was signed but never registered are legal questions, and the answer depends on the wording in front of you and on facts the registry has never seen.
An unregistered antenuptial contract is the case that catches people. Signed before the wedding but never lodged, it can still bind the two spouses to each other, while third parties are entitled to treat the marriage as in community of property. If a search returns nothing under either spouse, that is the possibility to take to an attorney, and it is a real one rather than a search failure.
If it is a title deed you are missing
The pattern is the same but the numbers differ. A lost title deed copy is straightforward to replace, and the article on getting a title deed online covers it. A lost original, where you intend to sell, is a Section 68 replacement through a conveyancer and is covered in the Section 68 VA guide. And if you are trying to sell with neither, selling without a title deed sets out what will and will not work.
Common questions
Can I get my ANC if I do not know which deeds office registered it?
Yes. Both the person search and the person document search cover all eleven registries in one search, so you do not need to know where it was lodged.
Can I search for someone else's antenuptial contract?
The deeds register is public, so the search itself is not restricted. What you may do with personal information you obtain from it is governed by POPIA, and that applies to you as soon as you hold it.
Will a certified copy be accepted in a divorce?
A copy certified by the deeds registry is what courts and attorneys generally ask for. Confirm with the attorney handling the matter before ordering, because two to three weeks is not time you want to spend twice.
What if we married out of community but never registered the contract?
Then nothing will come back from the register, because there is nothing registered. That is a question for an attorney rather than a search, and the search result is the evidence you take to them.