Legal Articles and Guides

The SCA has granted special leave to appeal to Nelson Mandela's ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela on her claims to the late President's Qunu home on the basis of customary law. Madikizela-Mandela unsuccessfully challenged the decision of the executors to exclude her from the Qunu home's ownership in the Eastern Cape High Court (Mthatha). She also lost the appeal.

The Estate Agency Affairs Board of SA has painted a bleak picture of embattled Beyers Realty Group’s financials, saying none of the R8m worth of deposits for 29 purchasers and 26 tenants has been recovered. A Cape Times report notes the money was withdrawn from the company’s Standard Bank trust account. Beyers was liquidated in October after millions went missing from an account.

Six siblings have lost their High Court bid to hang on to their onetime family home and have their stepmother’s sale of the south Durban property set aside. The Mercury reports the siblings – and one of their wives – approached the courts last year, seeking to have the sale deemed unlawful and wrongful. They wanted the property declared part of their parents’ ‘matrimonial property’.

In a comprehensive ruling on an eviction dispute, seen as a major victory for workers and families residing in farming communities, the Constitutional Court came up with four separate judgments on the matter, notes Daily News. The ruling brought legal certainty to the issue –farm dwellers seeking to challenge an eviction order should approach the SCA rather than the Land Claims Court when seeking legal recourse. The matter did the rounds of the Magistrate’s Court, the Land Claims Court and the SCA, which struck the matter off its roll, before getting to the top court.

The City of Tshwane and the Ekurhuleni municipality have approached the Constitutional Court to appeal against a judgment that municipalities may not hold a property owner liable for a previous owner’s historical municipal debts. A Business Day report notes the judgment of the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) gave relief to home and business owners who had been saddled with years of historical municipal debt, and who have been refused municipal services until the debt had been settled.

Neighbours in the Nahoon River Estate in Beacon Bay are in a legal war over a massive R4m home being built, which they say contravenes numerous municipal zoning and other regulations. A Daily Dispatch report says Vanessa and Brian Burrows – who own two houses alongside the massive, unfinished structure belonging to Mcebisi Ntlikithi – have resorted to the Eastern Cape High Court (Grahamstown) over the mansion being built next to them.

Twenty-seven adults and six children who have been living on the street outside the building in Yeoville‚ Johannesburg‚ from which they were unlawfully evicted almost two weeks ago have been given the right by the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) to return home. This was confirmed by the Legal Resources Centre (LRC)‚ which represented the families, notes a TimesLIVE report.

After a battle lasting more than four years, the residents of Brooklyn in Pretoria have permission to implement road closures and make their area a gated community, says a Pretoria News report. The protracted battle with the city started in 2012 and eventually went to the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) on various occasions. This week, Judge Neil Tuchten suggested the parties should try to find common ground.

The Land Claims Court claims the ‘countless failures’ of the Commission of Land Restitution to timeously process land claims had led to ‘justice being denied’ for some claimants. The Mercury reports the court – in a scathing judgment – said the commission’s failure to carry out its obligations due to ‘insufficient funding, delays, procrastination and inefficiency’ were a ‘stark example of justice delayed causing justice to be denied’.

Several conveyancing attorneys and new homeowners in Nelson Mandela Bay have been duped out of R8.4m by con artists. A Saturday Dispatch report says the online scam includes the use of false bank accounts, fraudulent identities and fake e-mail addresses to siphon the money. Since January last year, R8.4m has been stolen in 19 separate cases reported by several conveyancing firms across the city.

Private property developers at the centre of a legal dispute expected the court to ‘get blood out of a stone’ when they asked that Bromwell Street residents in Woodstock – who are facing eviction – pay their legal costs. A Cape Times report says the lawyer for Woodstock Hub had asked the Western Cape High Court yesterday to order the residents to pay for the legal fees.

Municipalities may not hold a property owner liable for a previous owner’s historical municipal debts, the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) ruled yesterday, notes Business Day. It says the judgment will give relief to home and business owners who have been saddled with years of historical municipal debt, and who have been refused municipal services until the debt had been settled.

Landlords are obliged to notify their tenant of the upcoming expiration of the lease agreement. This obligation will arise not more than 80 but not less than 40 business days before the expiry date of the fixed term agreement.

In this reported judgment, Le Roux Attorneys successfully represented Applethwaite Farm in evicting Mr Patrick Tshongweni and all those holding title under him from the farm in terms of Section 4 of the Prevention of Illegal Eviction From and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act No 19 of 1998 (‘PIE).

Going through a list of our files the other day, I realised that our firm dealt with 99 eviction matters in the last year. Some instructions related to residential evictions, some related to farms. The majority of our instructions relate to commercial property. I’ve seen commercial property management strategies that work, and I’ve seen strategies flop. One of our clients has reduced their tenant default rate to one percent, while another company we worked with has a default rate ten times that, at ten percent.