The owner of a property in upmarket Llandudno, who resorted to using private security to evict a tenant and employees, has been slapped with an interdict, stopping him from interfering with their possession of the property until the outcome of a proper eviction application.

GroundUp reports that the owner, Keith Broad, says he launched eviction proceedings in the court, but the matter was only set down to be heard in November.

He engaged private security in July to take back control of the property, because he believed the tenant, Darren Russel, was in the ‘process of concluding a sub-lease which would mean it would be occupied by foreign nationals for an extended period of time’.

Western Cape High Court Acting Judge Susan van Zyl, handing down her reasons for the order, said she had no doubt that the ‘driving force’ behind the forcible removal of Russel and his employees was his frustration at the delay in finalising the eviction application.

The judge said she did not have to determine whether or not Russel was a lawful tenant or that he was permanently resident there.

The fact that he came and went, and his belongings were in the house, meant that he had possession.

She said Broad’s conduct ‘reeks of a pattern of attempts to circumvent the hearing of the eviction application that may very well recur in the coming months’.

She said this was a classic case of spoliation.

Full GroundUp report

Judgment