Legal Articles and Guides

The Western Cape Government will make submissions today in the case brought by the Human Rights Commission (HRC) and the EFF to strike down the existing legal right of landowners to protect property from unlawful occupation attempts without a court order.

“Community scheme” living has many advantages, but disputes come with the territory and that’s where the conciliation and alternative dispute resolution services offered by the CSOS (Community Schemes Ombud Service) come into the picture. We’ll start off discussing what disputes you can refer to the Ombud and talk about why a recent High Court decision means that, barring exceptional circumstances, you cannot go direct to a court. A group of loft owners in an inner-city mixed-use building found that out the hard way, with the Court calling their application an “abuse of process” and awarding costs against them on a penalty scale. We end off with a look at an exception to that rule in the form of another court case, this time one in which the Ombud was held to have no power to hear a claim for damages.

The City of Cape Town says it will approach the Constitutional Court to challenge a part of the Disaster Management Act (DMA) regulations following an increase in unlawful occupations.

The question of whether it is possible – using the paradigm of the indigenous customs of Zulu law – to institute a private property title regime has been answered in the affirmative in the recent KZN High Court (Pietermaritzburg) judgment in Council for the Advancement of the SA Constitution v Ingonyama Trust.

The Ngqushwa local municipality has been ordered by the Eastern Cape High Court (Bhisho) to allow businesswoman Nolubabalo Mcinga to occupy its property after she was forcefully evicted on 8 September.

A legal skirmish about the right of landowners to evict illegal occupiers without a court order has shone a harsh spotlight on SA’s housing backlog.

The Western Cape High Court has found that the City of Cape Town's eviction of 46 homeless people from an empty parking lot in District Six last month was unlawful.

The Western Cape High Court has dismissed an urgent application brought by the City of Cape Town requesting that Judge Rosheni Allie recuse herself on grounds that she could be biased.

The Western Cape High Court has dismissed an application by the Mzamomhle Foundation Trust to evict the Mzamomhle Educare crèche, which caters for needy children in Wallacedene.

For many of us, our home is our most important asset so when it comes time for us to sell, do everything possible to ensure that your interests are fully protected, that the sale goes through quickly and smoothly, and that you are paid without unnecessary delay.

More than R100m will be required over the next three years to set in motion the Agriculture, Land Reform & Rural Development Department’s plan to implement the ruling of the KZN High Court (Pietermaritzburg) regarding lease agreements being enforced by the Ingonyama Trust Board (ITB).

Land Claims Court Acting Judge President Yasmin Meer has been found to have violated prescripts of the law in her judgment that nailed lawyers for pursuing what she termed a ‘vexatious and frivolous’ restitution application.

Defiant residents of the Bayland informal settlement have vowed to remain on the land they occupy illegally despite an eviction order by Eastern Cape High Court (Gqeberha) Judge Sunil Rugunanan.

'This is not only about getting our land back. What about the many years I worked from the age of 13 as a domestic worker at the white farmers’ house, cleaning the house, looking after their children, doing their laundry, and working in their garden for six months every year, mostly without pay unless the white farmer was in a good mood, and he would pay me R10 at the end of six months?’

The District Six Working Committee, the organisation that spearheaded a court case against the Department of Rural Development & Land Reform to compel it to ensure claimants return to the area, is mulling further litigation, notes a News24 report.