Category

Electricity

Oct 14
0

Prescribed charges

By | Electricity, Tenants

How long are you liable for municipal charges?

If you own a property, you are responsible for payment of certain charges to your municipality. If you are a tenant, you may pay your own utility costs or you may have an “all-in” rent, in which the landlord accommodates the cost of electricity, water and sewerage, etc., within the rental amount, and they pay the municipality directly. The property owner must always pay the property rates. What happens if you fail to pay the municipal charges you are liable for, either as owner or occupier? Is there a statute of limitations on debt to the municipality? The answer is complicated. In this context, the law refers to “prescribed charges”.

What does “prescribed” mean? 

A charge is prescribed when the law considers the debt too old for the creditor to enforce collection. A creditor can still demand payment of prescribed charges and include them on an invoice, but the defence of prescription may be used by the debtor to avoid payment. 

The National Credit Act 34 of 2005 (read with the National Credit Amendments Act 19 of 2014) makes it unlawful for a municipality to invoice a consumer for prescribed charges, or to collect them.

When do municipal charges prescribe?

The prescription of municipal charges is covered by the Prescription Act, Act 68 of 1969, read with current case law. In South Africa, refuse, rates and sewerage charges prescribe after a period of 30 years. However, water and electricity charges prescribe after a period of just three years. Water and electricity can easily be disconnected by the municipality for non-payment, unlike refuse collection or sewerage, which may explain the shorter prescription period.

Principles of prescription of municipal charges 

There is a mild anomaly in the way the prescription period is set for municipal charges. Debts generally fall due when the customer (the debtor) receives the invoice. The prescription period theoretically starts running when the debt falls due. However, we have all experienced times when our municipal bills arrive later than usual. In this case, prescription starts running when the knowledge of the claim should reasonably have come to the creditor’s attention. In plain English, if the municipality fails to invoice consumers for an extended period, then prescription starts when it reasonably ought to have done so, and not when the invoices were eventually despatched. 

Prescription is “interrupted” and the prescription period restarts if a consumer has admitted liability for the charge unambiguously and unequivocally. This can be problematic if a consumer signs an acknowledgement of debt for charges under dispute, to procure a payment plan or arrange for reconnection of services which were terminated due to non-payment. 

Payment of a prescribed charge and interruption of prescription

Once an amount has been paid, it cannot prescribe. Even if you made the payment in ignorance of this condition and in error, you cannot claim a reversal of the prescribed amount, or a refund of the amount paid. If a municipality has summonsed a consumer for an unpaid amount, this amount does not prescribe. 

Part payment of a debt, or acknowledgement of part of a debt, can interrupt the prescription period for the whole debt. This is sometimes an issue when a municipality sends out invoices based on estimated readings for an extended period of time. If a consumer either pays or admits liability for the charges raised on estimated readings, and the municipality then reconciles the consumer’s account with the actual readings and raises further charges, the new charges cannot prescribe.

Do you need further information? 

Prescription should not arise if you pay your bills on time. If you think you have been invoiced inaccurately or unfairly, relying on the prescription period is not the most appropriate way to avoid paying a charge you believe is unfair. If the charge is for water or electricity, you are likely to be disconnected. If the charge is for rates, refuse or sewerage, 30 years is a long time to be in dispute with the council! 

If you have any questions about your bill, speak to your municipality in the first instance. If you are in financial difficulty and are unable to pay your bill, it will usually agree to arrange a payment plan, but it’s important to make contact as early as possible and not as a last resort.

If you have done this and are still in dispute, SD Law can help. We are a firm of specialist eviction lawyers in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban. We help landlords and tenants maintain healthy working relationships and we can also resolve matters with municipalities. Contact one of our attorneys on 086 099 5146 or simon@sdlaw.co.za if you need help with any property issues.

Further reading:

Jun 29
0

Hungry or evicted: Life for migrant women in Johannesburg’s ‘dark buildings’

By | Electricity, Eviction news, Evictions

The government declared evictions illegal during lockdown levels 5, 4 and 3. But what happens when the landlord is already operating outside the law? We were sad to read the story of these women in Johannesburg.

Reprinted from Dispatch Live. By Reuters and Kim Harrisberg – 2020-06-28

During the prolonged Covid-19 lockdown, refugee and migrant women living in Johannesburg are often faced with a choice between being able to feed their families or keep a roof over their heads.

During the prolonged Covid-19 lockdown, refugee and migrant women living in Johannesburg are often faced with a choice between being able to feed their families or keep a roof over their heads.
Image: SANDILE NDLOVE

When Cynthia fled Zimbabwe as a refugee, she dreamed of a safe, clean house in neighbouring South Africa where she could start a new life.

But seven years later she is one of hundreds of single Zimbabwean women living in Johannesburg’s notorious “dark buildings” — crowded but cheap accommodation in derelict properties that were illegally seized by rogue landlords.

Like many of the refugee and migrant women living there, she lost her job as a domestic worker during South Africa’s coronavirus lockdown, forcing her to choose between buying food or paying rent.

“The lockdown has been very painful for these women,” said Ethel Musonza, 50, who founded Zimbabwe Isolated Women in South Africa (ZIWISA), a group that connects the women over WhatsApp for help with food, rent and emotional support.

“Landlords want to evict them if they are unable to pay (rent),” she said, adjusting her facemask as she walked towards a dark building in the rundown Doornfontein suburb in Johannesburg, where a number of ZIWISA members are based.

“Sometimes only one child can eat and not another,” Musonza told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding that the group ZIWISA supports has doubled in size to 2,000 WhatsApp members in several provinces since lockdown began in March.

The municipal government of Johannesburg estimates that more than 1,470 properties in the city have been taken over by people pretending to be the rightful owners.

They rent out single rooms for about R600 a month to up to six tenants at once and cut off electricity when the room is not paid for, said Lucky Sindane, a spokesperson for the city’s anti-fraud and corruption unit.

Some buildings have no electricity at all, and this darkness combined with “experiences of misfortune” have inspired the name “dark buildings”, according to South African academic Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon.

Inside a small room shared with four other people, with a curtain as a door, Cynthia sat on her bed.

“I want to live a better life … in a place I feel safe,” said Cynthia, whose name has been changed to protect her identity.

“But until then I have ZIWISA, which supports us to stand strong during lockdown,” said the 32-year-old, adding that the organisation has helped her and others to leave abusive partners.

FOOD AID

In a basement parking lot in Doornfontein, Musonza was guiding a calm queue of women towards a table so they could tick off their names and collect their food parcels.

During lockdown, which the country began easing out of on June 1, Musonza has been working with South African charity Participate Empower Navigate (PEN) to co-ordinate food aid for hundreds of ZIWISA members living in illegal accommodation under lockdown.

Musonza herself moved to South Africa from Zimbabwe in 1998. Since then she has been a domestic worker and begged on Johannesburg’s streets.

Now she makes ends meet through selling food on the street, but most of her time is dedicated to volunteering full-time for ZIWISA, which she started in 2009.

The ZIWISA WhatsApp group, the main avenue of communication between the women, pings constantly in her pocket as members message her for assistance.

“Many of the women turn towards sex work out of desperation,” said Musonza, adding that by pooling their money the members have helped pay rent for 10 women in dark buildings and saved them from evictions during lockdown.

South Africa’s most recent census figures from 2011 show that more than 3% of the population is made up of “non-South African citizens”.

But estimates vary widely and researchers say it is difficult to collect reliable numbers.

Many of those living in Johannesburg’s inner city are from Zimbabwe, said Musonza, a country where aid groups warn millions face growing levels of hunger due to recurring drought, widespread floods, lost harvests and an economic crisis.

ZIWISA members are a mix of women who have managed to get work permits, others with refugee status and some who have crossed the border illegally, so they have no papers at all, said Musonza.

“I have felt stuck and lonely,” said Siyabonga (whose name was also changed), 48, a single mother-of-three standing in the food parcel queue in the basement parking lot.

During the lockdown, a friend added her to ZIWISA’s WhatsApp group to connect with other women in a similar situation, many who she says now call to check up on her every few days.

“ZIWISA has helped me find a counsellor, get food and feel like I have a home and a family,” she said, as she ticked off her name and collected her food parcel.

DARKNESS

Sheila, 30, lives in a room with her three children in one of Doornfontein’s dark buildings, where wires suspended from the ceilings hold makeshift curtain dividers so they can each have their privacy.

The entire building, which sometimes houses up to 700 people, shares a single toilet, so everyone queues in the morning to use it, she said.

Sheila, who asked not to use her real name, begs on the street for money and struggled to earn enough for rent during the lockdown, as the army patrolled the streets to make sure people stayed indoors.

Only able to pay part of her R600 rent, her electricity was cut off by her landlord during lockdown, plunging her into darkness.

“The hijackers of these buildings are the criminals,” said city spokesperson Sindane, adding that the corruption unit is currently researching hijacked properties.

“There are some criminals like drug dealers who live there, but many are just desperate, innocent people. It is a sad and complicated situation,” said Sindane, who works to return the properties to their original owners.

Sometimes the owners of the dark buildings have left the country, or they are in South Africa but unable or afraid to take back the properties from their illegal occupiers, he explained.

Sindane noted that tenants are only made to leave the property if the legal owner gets a court order for eviction.

“We try to encourage property owners to consider the people living in the building, to try to renovate the property and enter in a new lease agreement with current tenants,” he said.

This does not always happen, said Musonza, who has been evicted from four different dark buildings by owners with eviction orders. But despite the stigma of criminality and danger that they carry, “the dark buildings provide”, she said.

“It is cheap and better than living on the streets. It gives us shelter,” she added, as she walked through a dimly lit passageway in one of the buildings, checking her WhatsApp messages as her phone pinged relentlessly.

“I need to remind these women that despite where they live, they are strong.”

The Thomson Reuters Foundation is the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, covering the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org

*Simon Dippenaar & Associates, Inc. is a firm of specialist eviction lawyers, based in Cape Town and now operating in Johannesburg and Durban, helping both landlords and tenants with the eviction process. Contact one of our attorneys on 086 099 5146 or sdippenaar@sdlaw.co.za if you need advice on the eviction process or want to know the cost of eviction.

Jun 09
0

Electricity protests in Western Cape mar back-to-school efforts

By | COVID 19, Electricity, Protests

Stock image. Photo: Adobe Stock

Bronagh Hammond, spokesperson for the Western Cape Education Department said that staff of both Chatsworth Primary and Riverlands Primary in Malmesbury were affected by the protest action. Staff were unable to get to their schools, she said.

Learners at Chatsworth Primary School in Malmesbury could not attend classes on Monday after protesters barricaded the only entrance to the area with burning tyres while vehicles entering or exiting were pelted with stones.

Angry residents occupying Silvertown, private agricultural land outside the urban edge of Swartland Municipality, were protesting over the lack of electricity provision. People have settled in the area illegally over a period of six years, and have erected informal dwellings on plots that were sold to them illegally on Gumtree.

The wave of protests began last week and continued on Monday morning. Teachers living outside Chatsworth were prevented from entering while buses transporting learners from Chatsworth to adjacent areas were also blocked.

However, before 10am, calm was restored when police cleared the debris and dispersed the crowd.

Bronagh Hammond, spokesperson for the Western Cape Education Department said staff of both Chatsworth Primary and Riverlands Primary were affected by the protest action. Staff were unable to get to their schools, she said.

“After the police arrived, the staff members were escorted to their schools. Both schools were open, however. While most learners at Riverlands Primary were present, those at Chatsworth were not.

“We are hopeful that the protest will not continue on Tuesday so that there is no further disruption to schooling,” Hammond said.

Community leader Sara Fabi said two buses transporting about 90 learners were prevented from taking Grade 7 and Grade 12 learners to schools in Malmesbury and Atlantis. Fabi said parents, after waiting for nearly two hours for calm to be restored, decided to take their children home.

Madelaine Terblanche, spokesperson for the Swartland Municipality, said the municipality had been part of the lawsuit instituted by the private landowner for the eviction of people illegally occupying the land, which initially comprised 52 households.

The matter has not been finalised by the courts, which has delayed the outcome of the eviction application. However, the eviction could be delayed for some time because eviction orders were suspended during the period of the Covid-19 lockdown.

According to Terblanche, the land in question is not owned by the municipality and has not been declared a formal township. As a result, the area has not been provided with services.

“The Silvertown community has since 2014 had access to water via a standpipe that was erected by the municipality. A further two standpipes, as well as a water tank, were erected before lockdown commenced. Refuse is removed from the area from a central point,” she said.

The latest demand by residents is for the provision of electricity to the settlement by Eskom, the electricity provider in the area. However, the installation of these services was also subject to the area being declared a formal township, said Terblanche.

Violent protests initially flared up in Silvertown on 1 and 2 June. Protesters burnt tyres and torched Eskom infrastructure, which left numerous farms and households without electricity and in some instances without water. Police used rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.

Eskom technicians, escorted by municipal law enforcement officers, repaired the damage. However, on Sunday night the same pole was set alight again.

“Presently the municipality is attempting to schedule a meeting with representatives of Silvertown to discuss their demands, along with stakeholders, including the landowner and Eskom,” said Terblanche.

The situation remains volatile while police and law enforcement officers patrol the area. Fabi said she was sad learners had been caught up in a dispute between disgruntled Silvertown residents and the municipality.

“The Chatsworth community has elected a delegation to be part of a discussion between the Swartland municipality and other stakeholders. We are not sure if schools in our area will resume on Tuesday. The protest usually starts late and night and early in the morning,” Fabi said. DM

Source: Daily Maverick (emphasis by SD Law*)

*Simon Dippenaar & Associates, Inc. is a firm of attorneys based in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban. We can be contacted on 086-099-5146 or sdippenaar@sdlaw.co.za.