Daan’s Snippets – 8th February 2025

Practice

News:

• Practitioners misbehaving:
  • Adv Mpofu had argued that it was a racist and condescending to assume that Nummawan and his legal team was pursuing a so-called Stalingrad strategy; suggesting that they could not think for themselves. Fun.
  • MK’s John Hlope, in a tat for tit (pun intended) accused his accuser (of sexual harassment) of stealing party funds. More fun.
• Our legal framework stifling mineral development: Mr Mantashe has promised updates which will reduce mining regulatory uncertainty and boost investment, by March. Now this is going to be fun!
• Our government has been at a sexual offenders register for some years (2007!). Now the constitutional rights of convicted criminals is an issue, given the promise that the register will be published by the end of this month. Promises, promises, promises…
• RAF: the Council for Medical Schemes is heading to the SCA over mistakes made in the recent Discovery Health High Court case. 
• Whilst on such matters: the Board of Healthcare Funders will approach the Competition Tribunal to set aside a Competition Commission decision not to allow medical schemes to collectively negotiate tariffs with healthcare providers.
• If a company does not have a closure certificate for a mine, would it be responsible for the Zama Zama deaths in “its” mine? (and should that company be responsible for the cost of the rescue efforts?): https://www.primediaplus.com/2025/01/27/stilfontein-mine-owners-liability-in-question-following-death-of-88-miners-in-abandoned-shaft
  Perhaps we should ask Mr Mantashe – it’s his department, after all.
• You have to love this one: our former Justice Minister has threatened litigation and personal costs orders for violation of privacy against journalists, who reported on her spending on luxury goods, which spending outstripped her salary as mayor (her previous job). Not my province at all but, my understanding is that if one is a public figure, very little that may be of public interest, is sacrosanct.
• The DTIC has launched a probe into claims of SABS mismanagement.
• The Hospital Association of SA had, a week or so before SONA, announced that it would take legal action against the intended NHI Act. Would the reported acceptance by our GNU of a settlement on this act change its stance?

Hard News:

• Changes to our Companies Act had come into effect at the end of December last year. The following is a quick and easy-to-delete summary of those changes: https://www.werksmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Recent-amendments-to-the-Companies-Act-a-quick-reference-guide_-30.01.2025.pdf
• Our Department of Employment and Labour gazetted a new code of good practice on dismissals last week. Worth a look: https://labourguide.co.za/misconduct/code-of-good-practice-dismissal-general
• The locus standi of a provisionally sequestrated person relating to his previous assets is discussed: https://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZASCA/2025/4.pdf
• Be wary of amending a contract, which has lapsed, owing to the non-fulfilment of conditions: https://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZASCA/2025/1media.pdf
• May an employer retrench employees, who refuse to agree to changes to their remuneration? https://www.chmlegal.co.za/whiskey-business-retrenchments-and-proportionality-principle
• Not withdrawing from a case, if clients cannot pay and self-interest: https://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAGPJHC/2025/75.html

Conveyancing

• Repossessions of immovable property by banks have been much in the news of late. The case in question, drew press notice, as a bank employee had promised that no further action will be taken, which was not the case, and the bank had bungled its sums properly. The judgement and sale in execution was set aside. What I enjoyed, was the press comments about the relevant bank’s presentation of its case, whilst presentation of the case lies within the province of its practitioners! https://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAGPPHC/2024/1363.html
• The following article should be read by conveyancers, as we often deal with transfers from and to trusts. Many of us also deal with estate law; the content is instructive on the drafting of trusts: https://stbb.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stbb_plu03-2025-s1.pdf

Property

Trends:

• That our economy is in a recovery phase, is not news (retail sales in November was the best in 14 years but the World Bank still holds our GDP growth forecast at 1.8%). The question is, by how much will our economy recover and what will the turnaround time be. The Prez wants 3%+, which is probably optimistic.
• Primedia, speaking with Jawitz, published a note saying that a shift in investor sentiment is taking place on the back of lower prime rates. 
• BusinessDay says that the office property sector is set for a slow bounce-back owing to an oversupply. The retail and industrial markets are also oversupplied but are better off.
• Interestingly, the evergreen arguments on whether one should buy/rent/invest will now again appear, as options become more apparent with increasing consumer optimism. Heck, Reits have started punting the defensive qualities of their products, saying that stable real estate investment is the way to go.

News

• A factor, unknown many years ago, has now been underlined in Sona; municipal malfunction. Water and electricity supply are issues when buying; and malfeasance, corruption and ineptitude have put paid to the property investments that would have been a great buy some years ago. The following articles are instructive on the malaise that consumers face: https://codera.co.za/many-sa-municipal-websites-are-down/
  https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/property-scandal-involves-joburg-billing-chaos-wronged-tenants-and-floyd-mayweathers-trunks-20250124
• The Prez ascribes municipal malfunction to the design of our local government system. He will consult on this and develop a modern and fit-for-purpose local government system. Nice… The difficulty is that most municipalities are dysfunctional because of inept governance and broke because they provide services to a great many who won’t or cannot pay therefor. Changing the system sounds great but will probably not produce much as our problem lies in capacity and lack of money, both of which will not go away soon.
• Another newsmaker is EWC, made more so by our ever-bekkige Mr Trump. If properly administered, EWC in its current form is not that much of an issue. The problem with this lies our jaundiced view of our government. This article is a reasonably neutral take on the issue: https://www.werksmans.com/legal-updates-and-opinions/expropriation-act-deconstructed-and-demystified/
• The drop in our interest rates has spawned its first opinion on buying versus renting; suffice it to say that the winner is less clear than the article suggests: https://dailyinvestor.com/property/75875/buying-your-house-versus-renting-in-south-africa-the-winner-is-clear/
• Short-term tenancy/Airbnb is set for a shakeup: https://businesstech.co.za/news/property/809414/new-rules-and-taxes-coming-for-airbnb-in-south-africa/
• Eskom’s woes have led to it wanting to penalise those with solar installations for its loss of income. One’s sense of fairness says that Eskom’s incapacity should not be rewarded from our attempts to mend electricity shortfall for which we were not responsible. I would be most unhappy if our municipality introduced such a tax here.
• Finally, in a month and a half, our current property registration system is set to go electronic. If that happens, I shall be very, very surprised.

Hard news:

• An interesting dispute in the Hessequa municipality arose as a neighbour closed off vehicular access across that neighbour’s property, which access had been in use for many years. The difficulty was that the historical access to the property, now deprived of access, before the days of vehicles, was only 1.2 m wide. The principle that no property may be isolated from a road and, quite possibly, use over 30 years of an entrance, might assist the owner: https://www.netwerk24.com/netwerk24/Nuus/Hof/hof-moet-nou-se-oor-sonde-met-die-bure-20250205
• Paddocks regard themselves as sectional title specialists. They published two articles i.e.:
  • https://www.paddocks.co.za/paddocks-press-newsletter/a-legal-analysis-of-responsibility-for-maintenance-underneath-an-eua
  • https://www.paddocks.co.za/paddocks-press-newsletter/a-case-analysis-body-corporate-san-sydney-shivani-singh-and-others/
    The title of the first speaks for itself. The second addresses whether a member of a scheme can withhold consent to extend that scheme.
    
• Three new pieces of legislation, affecting land use, are:
  • the Preservation and Development of Agricultural Land Act;
  • the Housing Consumer Protection Act; and
  • the Consumer Protection Act.

A summary of the provisions of these may be found at https://stbb.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stbb_plu03-2025-s2.pdf

Finally, comment on the changes to the CPA, affecting housing, are summarised in: https://www.werksmans.com/legal-updates-and-opinions/housing-consumer-rights-headed-in-the-right-direction/

Property practitioners should take note of these.

Comment

A side-comment, by the CEO of Toyota SA, attracted my attention: he said that the influx of cheap Chinese vehicles created an “unequal playing field” in the local automotive landscape. He says that the Chinese government plays a big role in supporting the production of vehicles for export from China, which is largely absent in South Africa. Can this be correct? A cursory Internet search revealed that China, indeed, does subsidise the production of, especially, electric vehicles. We do too – lately a 150% investment allowance for capital on electrical vehicle production and preferential tax treatment on existing production facilities (https://codera.co.za/motor-industry-support-and-contribution-to-gdp/). We also protect our local industry by the imposition of tariffs on imported vehicles. 

I know little enough about the topic but would love to see a debate on whether (especially looking at consumer benefit) cheaper vehicle imports is not possibly the way to go. The fact is that if we cannot manufacture a vehicle here at the same price that it is imported, ignoring any tariffs subsidies and so on, then we are simply not sufficiently competitive. 

Lighten up: on level playing fields…

It obviously bothers people when Real Madrid win. It makes them jealous. There isn’t a level playing field.

Cristiano Ronaldo

~

Contributed by:
Daan Steenkamp Attorneys
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