An American businessman and his landlord are clashing over an eviction and asset seizure when the businessman withheld his rent at a luxury Lowveld estate.

News24 reports that technology executive Thomas Buchar argued he had every reason to withhold the nearly R100 000 he owed Nick Spencer because, he claimed, the landlord had failed to fix serious electrical issues that left him without power and caused the distribution board on the rental property at Zandspruit Bush and Aero Estate in Limpopo to catch fire.

The power struggle resulted in alleged death threats and the ‘theft’ of Buchar's house contents, estimated to be worth R1.6m.

Buchar said he and his partner, Beth Kender, could not access their possessions after they were denied access to their home. And when the sheriff accompanied Buchar to retrieve some of his property following a spoliation order, his former landlord and his girlfriend mocked the American about his sex toys, which they had found during the illegal seizure of his assets.

Buchar rented the house under his NPO, the Nembeza Wildlife Foundation, in May 2023.

He works remotely from the property, owned by the Pilot Trust, for which he pays R46 200 per month.

He specialises in developing advanced financial technology solutions for and with multinational corporations, which in the past has included Bloomberg and the London Stock Exchange. 

Three months into the lease, the distribution board caught fire.

Buchar claimed Spencer sent ‘unlicenced maintenance workers’ to deal with the problem.

But in August 2024 when the distribution board started sparking again and their power crisis had still not been resolved, Buchar and Kender had had enough. 

According to the electrician's report, which News24 has seen, there was severe corrosion damage to the circuit breaker cradles and some of the switchgear, believed to have been caused by moisture or water that had come in through the wall or conduits from the concrete roof to the distribution board.

Full News24 report