The Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) ruled recently that the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality could not cut off power to a tenant with a utility bill in its own name to force the landlord to pay outstanding rates, says a report in The Mercury. The court was ruling on an appeal in a dispute between the Ekurhuleni Municipality and Anzotrax, which trades as Topbet Germiston. The court was so annoyed by the metro’s litigation that it awarded a punitive costs order against it. Local legal experts said, however, this did not mean that the decision was binding on other provincial High Courts. They said it could only have a national implication once it went to the SCA or the Constitutional Court. In the case, the municipality had claimed it was allowed to disconnect in accordance with its cred it and debit control policies, which allowed it to consolidate separate accounts on the basis of the owner and tenant being jointly and severally liable for payment of all debts owing in respect of the property. The judges felt that this could ‘lead to manifest absurdities and could never have been the intention of the lawgivers’. They found there was ‘no legal basis’ for holding an owner or landlord and a tenant liable in regard to the owner’s rates and taxes. A punitive costs order was imposed on Ekurhuleni.

Full report in The Mercury (subscription needed)

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