Josef and Henrietta Erasmus, who failed to pay rental and water charges on a pig farm near Saldanha they leased for more than five years, will be evicted if they don’t vacate the property by 30 November 2021.

Western Cape High Court Judge Derek Wille ruled that if they had not left by the end of November, the Sheriff of the Court would make sure they did.

A Cape Argus report says the couple leased the property in March 2016 with an option to purchase.

The lease forbade them from undertaking any alterations or erecting any buildings, installations, irrigation systems, structures or the building of dams or roads without prior written consent.

Trouble began when in November 2018, the couple erected a structure on the farm on which they now live, despite not paying rental and water charges for more than five years.

Wille said the residential occupation of the farm and the manner in which it occurred was the subject of the core dispute between the parties.

The couple, meanwhile, argued that the agreed purchase price for the property was exaggerated.

Wille ruled they had failed to put up any credible evidential material in support of their argument in this connection.

He ordered the couple to pay R624,041 to the owners within 10 days.

He added that any further amounts due and payable, from 1 March 2021 to the date when the couple vacated the property, would be held over and stood over for later determination.

Full Cape Argus report

Judgment