GODWIN Radebe, 37, lives in abject poverty in a shack in Soweto while his attorney drags his feet to register a trust account.

His mother Beauty Radebe has not received a cent from her son's attorneys, Mkhabela Incorporated, even though the Road Accident Fund (RAF) paid R720,000 into their trust account four months ago.

Mkhabela Incorporated say they are still busy registering a trust account at Absa Bank. They said they would have given him an allowance from their own coffers, but Radebe gets a disability grant and they did not know he was destitute because he had not given them a budget.

Radebe was seriously injured in 2005 in a taxi accident. His mother says he suffered head injuries and was hospitalised at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital for four months.

She says when her son was discharged, she asked Mkhabela Incorporated to help her lodge a claim with the RAF.

She says the RAF eventually paid out R720,000 into the lawyers' trust account in early January this year.

The attorneys did not inform her until she visited their offices.

"That was 10 days later," Beauty Radebe says.

The attorney had confirmed receiving the money and offered to give her son a monthly allowance.

She says the attorney had previously agreed to take 25% legal fees and deposit the rest of the money into a bank account she would have opened for her son.

"Now that the RAF has compensated my son, these attorneys want to send him to a home of their choice without my permission," Beauty Radebe says.

She says her son lives in a shack, sleeps on the floor on a thin sponge mattress and does not have warm blankets though he has more than half a million rands in Mkhabela Incorporated's trust account.

"We share my government pension, but that is too little for the two of us," the aggrieved mother says.

She says her son's disability grant was terminated in December 2011 without a valid reason.

Arnold Mkhabela of Mkhabela Attorneys denied that they had withheld Radebe's money.

He also denied that he had entered into a contingency agreement with Beauty Radebe, adding he will deduct his fees from the compensation.

Mkhabela said his law firm had approached Absa Bank to open a trust account for Radebe.

He said the process takes a while and he could not say when it would be finalised.

Absa has agreed to handle Radebe's matter, but his office still had to approach the court about their recommendation, Mkhabela said.

He denied his firm would send Radebe to a home.

"The doctors have recommended Godwin be admitted to a home that will take care of him, but he needs to be close to his mother and his current home is the best place for him," Mkhabela said.

He said two months ago, he asked Thulani, Radebe's brother, for a monthly budget, but there was no cooperation from the family.

Mkhabela said he was willing to give Godwin a monthly allowance and to buy him what he needed, as long as it was justifiable.

But when the Radebe family went to the lawyer' s office last Thursday with a list , they were given Absa Trust application forms to fill out themselves, Beauty Radebe said.

"Absa turned us away. They said it is our attorney's duty to complete the forms," she said.