FNB has created an app which provides a quote for your current home, assists you in finding a new home and gives you pre-approved finance. Not a bad idea: Reference
FNB estimates that the percentage of sellers selling to downscale, owing to financial pressure, increased to 16.3% in the third quarter – compared to 34% in 2009, this may be higher than average but is not catastrophic. There is apparently also an increase in the percentage of sellers selling to emigrate at 8.6%. The latter is not as bad as the estimated 20% in 2008, but is still concerning.
Furthermore, home maintenance is not what it used to be: this is attributed to financial constraints rather than financial stress (the distinction was not immediately apparent to me).
Once again I read an advert from a developer in which the agent says that if you buy directly from the developer, you will save R80,000 on transfer duty. This of course ignores that you’re paying 15% in VAT!
The affordable market property is outperforming the balance of property sectors owing to pressure from above, namely downsizing, and pressure from below, i.e. those upgrading from informal housing.
An appeal to the Constitutional Court against a judgement in which it was held that a title condition (that one should develop within a certain period) was subject to prescription, has been refused. Such a clause is a debt and, like any other debt, prescribes after three years. Whilst the import of such a clause is now beyond question, it does leave conveyancers with a problem in that many such clauses both exist and need to be created from time to time. The decision is not yet available in SAFLLI – ask me for a copy.
Mounthaven v Ethekwini CCT 5/18
We estimate that, in Pietermaritzburg, will have to lodge by 5 December this year in order to be sure of registration before the closure of the Deeds Office. In this respect the Deeds Office will close on the 20th of December. A double execution will probably be held on the day before, i.e. the 19th.
