Daan's Snippets

Practice

News

  • Our BBBEE Commissioner says that he is considering a special tribunal to combat growing non-compliance with BEE legislation – yes, we definitely need another court!
  • Our so-called exit off the Grey List is hampered by the non-compliance with the FIC reports by, amongst others, lawyers.
  • The continued existence of Ithala Bank continues to cause ripples, in that the Prudential Authority has criticised the court, for not closing Ithala down, saying that the decision was legally incompetent. Attaboy!
  • There are currently six magistrates on suspension for perceived sins of one kind or another, like lying to a judge [believe it or not, practitioners are (said to be) paid to do this!]
  • Derivative actions against directors no longer automatically prescribe: https://www.cliffedekkerhofmeyr.com/export/sites/cdh/news/publications/2025/Practice/Dispute-Resolution/Downloads/Dispute-Resolution-Alert-20-May-2025.pdf
  • Those of us who deal in trust law should be aware of the following: https://www.gb.co.za/five-key-things-you-should-know-about-the-taxation-of-your-trust/
  • Buy these guys a Bells! The Open Secrets civil-society group has taken the NPA to court for its failure to investigate and prosecute corruption at PRASA; yes!
  • Whilst on the topic of taking the state to court – AfriForum has challenged the constitutionality of the Expropriation Act in the Pretoria High Court.
  • Banks (said to be) repossessing and selling residential property for less than market value is old hat – what is interesting, is that a class action, headed up by Adv Shaw, for some R60bn was brought against these banks and which commenced in 2017. Whatever, this is not going to be a pushover.
  • A webinar on the court online system in KZN, was held by the KZN High Court but was, reportedly and mildly stated, not a runaway success; a common complaint was that logon was difficult and that owing to a quota having been set, many could not gain access at all, the sound quality left a lot to be desired and attendees could not raise contemporaneous queries but had to wait until the end.

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Hard news

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 Conveyancing/property

  • Weighing the public’s right to safe infrastructure against the operational constraints faced by municipalities: https://www.webberwentzel.com/News/Pages/mind-the-gap-municipal-liability-and-the-hidden-dangers-beneath-our-feet.aspx
  • The relocation of the Johannesburg Deeds Office has drawn more comment as the current office has become impossible to occupy, owing to a flood of sewerage, which necessitated a move to interim offices; the new offices will only be completed next year. Maintenance!
  • Lodging costs: we currently pay R50 per jacket lodged. Assume that I lodge 100 deeds as part of a sectional scheme opening, which gets rejected as a result of an error of someone else in the set. Do I get to claim the extra R5000 costs from the one who errs?
  • West has said that an increase in convincing tariffs, intended to be effective on 1 July, may be expected.
  • Training in eDRS procedures will be offered in KZN over four days in the first week of June.

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Property

Trends

  • Aside from the statistics provided by FNB, there’s not much general information on property trends; what is available is this:
    • our property market is showing signs of recovery – average home values rose by 2.2% yoy in April, the fastest growth in nearly 2 years;
    • despite this, home sale activity is still 16% below the pre-pandemic levels;
    • average time on the market for home sales is 12 weeks, compared to 11 weeks at the end of last year.
  • Apropos the above, a few big developments could be noted:
    • The Grand Central Mega Housing Development due to be launched in Midrand Johannesburg shortly;
    • the Southern Farms Mega City Project, South of Johannesburg was launched at the beginning of this month; and
    • lastly the Bankenveld District City, situate between Sandton and Waterfall kicked off earlier this month.

These are all very large developments, indicative of the developers’ view that the Gauteng property market is set to recover. A further indication of financial progress is the rising occupancy levels at the Southern Sun Group.

  • Spear reports that occupancy rates, in its Western Cape office portfolio, rose to 97% over the last year.
  • The difficulty with area property write-ups is that they tend to be puffery built on hope and expectations – the latest from the Daily Investor is on the how the North Coast property powerhouse is set to explode. Amen!
  • Trending on the same note is Redefine recording positive lease renewals of late, following on anaemic growth of late.

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News

  • An interesting web/app may be found at https://www.fixlocal.org.za/fix-it , a site which promises links to infrastructural fixes – worth a look.
  • In Pietermaritzburg we find small ‘towns’ of very valuable properties situated on land which cannot be owned but which are connected to the services infrastructure (amazingly!). Our city loses out on the potential rates that it should be levying but which it does not have the cojones to do. A city, driven to find its ahem,.. is Tshwane –
    • which has now embarked on a formulation of  ‘a standard and fair approach to addressing illegal development’, of which there are 17 illegal developments!
    • Likewise, that city has confiscated several transformers from the Marry Me informal settlement, blathering the usual about safety, illegality and so on. The fact is that the existence of these must have been known for some time and was not initially acted upon.
  • On a daily basis, we read of large residential areas deprived of water, services and the like and, very recently there was a very negative report by the AG on the damage, wrought on the inhabitants of the Bloemfontein and Winberg municipal areas, by those municipalities. Undoubtedly this must have been what led COGTA to submit a White Paper on the overhaul of local governance policies. Much of what is promised in the White Paper is related to reducing complications and to incentivise good behaviour et cetera, with a shift to community participation. Amazingly, this is what local governance used to be like before political parties saw this as a fruitful area of reward.
  • The cheapest province in which the rent, is the North West, with an average rental of only R6.7k per month!
  • And, lastly, the construction mafia has been in the news for a long time – now a water mafia has emerged, disrupting water supplies to win contracts! We have seen some municipalities complaining about intentional disruptions but with little indication of formalisation – the lacuna has been filled.
  • Transnet will put its residential property on a fire sale via auctions – wait for it.

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Legal stuff

  • The expropriation without compensation debate is well worn and will probably remain in place unless Mr Trump leans on our political parties! Factually, if properly applied, there is probably not much wrong with the act itself.
  • An immediate example of the use of this act would be to re-purpose hijacked and abandoned buildings, of the mayor of Johannesburg is a proponent.
  • POPI is an administrative pain for those of us who behave ourselves. The following is interesting in passing, do note that there is now stricter consent rules for direct marketing: https://stbb.co.za/pulse-popia-overhaul-updated-regulations-take-effect/
  • Co-living and micro-apartments; marketed as a flexible alternative to traditional housing, in the long term the sustainability of such developments has been questioned – is this development stopgap or sustainable?
  • Apropos what had been dealt with above, on the widespread service delivery crisis: the Ditsobotla (Lichtenberg) disaster has led to Sakeliga applying to court for the national government take over the management of that area. If successful, we will need the new minister to cope with the deluge – or possibly yet another minister in the Presidency?

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Comment

As a clerk, my principal and rightly so, taught me that politics and religion are verboten topics for an attorney; but I am old… BBBEE is drawing more attention than ever in the past, as polls would appear to suggest that this policy is becoming increasingly unpopular amongst our voting populace , they having been disappointed in its result.. A wonderful and incisive quote by Davies, a board member of the Free Market Foundation, is this:

Q: who is the best person for this job?

A: The State: you may not hire who you judge is best. You must hire who we say.

His conclusion is that ‘once productive coordination gives way to racial compliance, the economic mechanism begins to lose coherence.’

Lastly, the circus presented by “Squirrel and Donny” this week, was said to be ‘hijacked’ by a video showing Mr Malema singing, ‘Kill the Boer’. Yes, he is entitled to sing this; but such entitlement is lost on anyone outside of South Africa. Heck, the offensiveness of the song is such that I would side with Trump on emigrating! That our courts were persuaded, that the harm done by this song is trumped (pun intended) by the right to free speech, is inexplicable. I might as well, argue that using the K-word, is part of my heritage and that I am therefore entitled to use this.

Lighten up

Social cohesion is said to be fostered by humour…

Contributed by:
Daan Steenkamp Attorneys
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