Our dysfunctional Msunduzi municipality suspended a number of officials in its rates department following on a meeting with conveyancers local Chamber some 10 days ago. This week past I went and queued for a rates quote now two months outstanding – I saw others complaining that they had paid quotes 3 months ago but had not yet received certificates. The harm suffered by residents who buy or sell as such that it has become a crisis which can no longer be ignored. Interestingly, the chap (a Dr nogal) had been in charge until very recently, has moved on to higher things; there to wreak further damage.

 

Usufruct: on a regular basis I encounter transfers of property from parents to children where the parents hold back usufruct on the property transferred. Colleagues dealing with these often use the full value of the property for transfer and tax purposes. When transferring that which remains after use rights to a property has been held back (generally referred to as the bare dominium) the real value of what is transferred is calculated according to a formula that has been in use for many years; this dramatically lowers the costs paid by the client and reduces the transfer duty payable. Aside from being wrong, not calculating the value of the bare dominium does one’s client no favours.

 

Another evergreen (dyspeptic) bête noir of mine, is one where sectional properties are transferred and, on requesting a levy certificate, one is told that by the owner (and, even worse, the estate agent) that the body corporate does not exist. BS: the moment a person other than the developer becomes an owner of a unit in a scheme the body corporate comes into existence automatically. All of these have bodies corporate which exist, but which are not functional. I believe that the current legislation precludes one from transferring a unit in a sectional scheme where there is no functioning body corporate. Aside from this the purchaser is entitled to a raft of protection which those who transfer such units simply ignore at their peril and to the prejudice of the purchaser.
Most irritatingly, when digging my heels in such matters I am told that there are others who do this all the time. At the best of times it is distressing to lose work to incompetents. To have to listen to their horns being blown, is infuriating.
In this respect I read a wonderful quote by Lars Nelson: The enemy isn’t conservatism. The enemy isn’t liberalism. The enemy is bullshit. ‘Nuff said.

 

IOL published the annual growth rates of average house prices in South Africa over the period 2001 – 2017. Interestingly, the eThekwini municipality leads in terms of value growth:

eThekwini – 334%
Cape Town – 332%
Joburg – 276%

Provincially KZN also leads:

KZN – 339%
Western Cape – 297%
Gauteng – 287%
Nationally – 295%