Legal Articles and Guides

The National Credit Regulator (NCR) has directed BMW to refund its customers for charging them an on-the-road fee on credit agreements, says a TimesLIVE report. The regulator said it was not aware what the fee was for as BMW did not explain when it inquired. The charges ranged from R3 000 to R6 000.

The SCA has overturned a High Court decision that had essentially rendered the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) toothless. A GroundUp report notes the SCA order was a settlement between the ASA and a company called Herbex, but it’s clear from the terms of the settlement that the ASA is the real winner in this case. The ASA is tasked with self-regulating advertising for the benefit of consumers.

POPI (the Protection of Personal Information Act) will provide welcome protection for our personal information – our names, ID numbers, addresses, medical histories and so on, but the other side of the coin is that it will expose small businesses in particular to a whole new raft of onerous obligations and risks.

A Cape Town car dealership has been ordered to refund a woman who bought a second-hand car in late 2015, only to have it break down a few days later. The National Consumer Tribunal found that Hanlie van Lill, of Kuilsriver, must be paid back the R61 450 she paid for her 2001 year model Volkswagen Passat, which broke down four days after she bought it, notes a Fin24 report.

Consumer protection, which includes being given access to a safe and dependable supply of food, is a fundamental requirement of any society. In transforming the South African food landscape, there have been gradual improvements to protect consumers, most notable with the advent of the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008. However, we still see unfit food products, especially in respect of mislabelled food products, reaching the store shelves.

Shoprite has been fined R1m for failing to assess properly whether consumers could afford its loans, says a Moneyweb report. The company – which had turnover in its last financial year of R141bn – was also ordered to appoint a debt counsellor at its own costs following what the National Credit Regulator (NCR) called ‘reckless lending’.

More than 225 applicants, mostly from Gauteng townships, have launched a suit in the Constitutional Court, claiming damages from the big banks for home repossession abuse. A GroundUp report says the applicants are claiming R60bn from the banks for unlawful repossession of homes since the Constitution came into effect in 1994.

A pensioner who invested in various property syndication schemes promoted and marketed by Sharemax Investments and Propspec, and was seeking the repayment of R1.54m he invested and lost in these schemes, has had his complaint referred to court. Pieter Taljaard filed eight complaints with the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services (Fais) Ombud in 2012 on the investments, according to a report in The Sunday Indpendent.

Consumers locked into contracts ‘for life’, unable to sell timeshare points or give them away to escape spiralling levy costs, and others who alleged exploitation by unscrupulous salespeople, presented their cases to the National Consumer Commission (NCC) in Durban yesterday.

A Durban businessman who died in a hail of bullets while driving a courtesy car from Land Rover has posthumously emerged victorious in a claim against his estate that he is liable for the full value, about R560 000, of the bullet-riddled car, says a News24 report. In a recent judgment, KZN High Court Judge Dhaya Pillay cautioned that contracts – in particular those, as in this case, which were signed on the bonnet of a car – must be clear and uncomplicated and must accord with the law and the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act and not hidden in tiny print.

The perpetuity of timeshare contracts that cannot be cancelled was the dominant complaint at public hearings held yesterday in Cape Town. A Business Day report says the hearings were conducted by the National Consumer Commission (NCC) inquiry into the timeshare or holiday club industry. People complained that their timeshare contracts could potentially last forever and they could not get rid of them long after they stopped enjoying the benefits of timeshare.

The National Consumer Commission (NCC) is hoping that its public hearings into the timeshare industry will give rise to a single law to ‘effectively and comprehensively’ regulate the industry and give consumers the right to participate in the affairs of holiday club schemes. A Business Day report says NCC commissioner Ebrahim Mohamed has appealed to consumers to take part in the public inquiry process, which moves to Cape Town this week.

Here’s yet another reminder from our courts on how important it is – if you want to avoid the trials of litigation – for you to have your property sale agreement drawn up professionally.  One thing it must do, as the case in question clearly shows, is record the terms of your agreement precisely and without any room for argument. This High Court case in Phepeng and Another v Estate Late Ame Combrinck and Others revolved around a “bond clause” in a sale agreement. 

The inquiry into timeshare investment will get to the bottom of the issues raised by complainants, is the assurance from Consumer Commissioner Ebrahim Mohamed as the National Consumer Commission’s (NCC) first round of public hearings into the timeshare industry got under way.

The Black Sash Trust says it is disappointed by the court’s decision to refuse its application for leave to appeal an earlier ruling which allowed Net1 to deduct money from the accounts of social grant beneficiaries, notes a report on the IoL site. In May, the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) ruled against the order by the Department of Social Development and Sassa to stop Net1 from allowing deductions from accounts of grant beneficiaries.