Conveyancing and Property Law

Are you planning on selling your home? Holiday Home or flat?  Have you paid your municipal rates account in full? There are so many questions that buyers and sellers have regarding the sale and purchase of a property or properties that it cannot be answered in a single article.

However, when dealing with a municipality one should have ones ducks in a row to use the colloquial lexicon. One issue that seems to constantly arise is the failure of the previous owners to settle their municipal accounts, this issue then becomes the problem of the new owner who is saddled with the debt raised by the previous owner.

Per section 118(3) of the Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000, as amended Municipalities believe that they may declare a property executable for the debts of a previous owner even if such property has been lawfully transferred to a new owner.

Municipalities can also suspend services such as water, electricity and even garbage collection. The municipality will also reduce to issue a Rates Clearance Certificate and thus can hold up transfer costing one time and money.

The new Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act (SPLUMA) was enacted in 2013 and certain sections of the Act will come into operation in mid-2015. SPLUMA is a framework act for all spatial planning and land use management legislation in South Africa.

Evictions in South Africa are regulated by the Prevention of Illegal Evictions from and Unlawful Occupation Act, Act 19 0f 1998 (“PIE” Act). In terms of Section 4 of the Act an application has to be made to court for an order of eviction.

Section 26(3) of the South African Constitution (Act 108 of 1996) provides that “no one may be evicted from their home without an order of court made after consideration of all the relevant circumstances”. To give effect to this provision in the Bill of Rights, Parliament enacted the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land, Act 19 of 1998 (‘the PIE Act’), which, according to its preamble, seeks to do the following:

When a contract is subject to a suspensive condition, the contract comes into effect only if the condition is met. On a practical level, this can entail a future event such as a deposit payment, securing a loan or even conditions such as graduating from university to receive a bonus payment. Suspensive conditions are commonly encountered in contracts for the sale of immovable property (e.g. deposit requests). They are often misunderstood, which can result in little recourse.

In terms of the law of contract all agreements (contracts), whether reduced to writing, or not (verbal contracts) are equally enforceable in law. However, contracts of sale of immoveable property are one of few contracts that, by law, must be recorded in writing (Alienation of Land Act 68/1981).German_Land_Scape

General levies, are based on the annual budget and are raised by the body corporate at the annual general meeting. Thus, general levies are raised with the approval of the body corporate.