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eviction attorneys South Africa Archives | Page 2 of 7 | Eviction Lawyers South Africa

Jun 21
0

7 tips for a successful eviction order

By | Eviction notice, Evictions, Tenants

It’s never nice to evict a tenant, but sometimes it is necessary. Follow these 7 tips to ensure a smooth process for you both.

 

Have you reached the end of your tether with a troublesome tenant? Or has your tenant ignored your notice to terminate the lease contract due to a breach on their part? Have they stopped paying rent or utilities? Whatever your reason for eviction, follow these 7 tips to ensure a successful eviction order.

  1. Engage a specialist. Evictions are technical and the courts are quick to throw a matter out if it fails to comply in any legal or technical manner. That means a waste of time and money, and will only add to  your frustration. Use the services of an attorney who is experienced with evictions and will get it right first time.
  2. Don’t try to evict the tenant yourself. This is illegal and can set the whole eviction back by months, wasting a lot of money. You may legitimately feel you are being exploited and have lost control of your property. It can be very tempting to try to find ways to get rid of the illegal tenant yourself. Resist the temptation. You could find yourself on the wrong side of the law. 
  3. Likewise, don’t cut off electricity, water or other utilities. The illegal occupant may have run up a huge bill, leaving you financially exposed. You may feel justified in disconnecting the services and you may hope it will force the occupants to leave. But this is illegal and can severely damage your case.
  4. Don’t harass the tenant. Constant calls or emails to the tenant or visiting the property in person is a counterproductive strategy because the tenant could obtain an interim protection order against you for harassment. Then you’d have two problems to deal with rather than one and your reputation could be damaged.
  5. Have faith in the process. Allow the relevant legislation to work in your favour. Trust the system, even if it seems unfair. If you follow correct procedure, the law will help you, and your eviction will be successful.
  6. Consider negotiating. An eviction application is the formal way forward, but this should be combined with an attempt to negotiate the illegal occupant’s exit. Let your attorney do this. Don’t attempt it yourself. Very often there are ways to convince an illegal occupant to leave rather than face litigation. Quite often they listen to reason and agree to vacate before you spend more time and money.
  7. Be patient. One of the hardest aspects of the eviction process is the need for patience. You have to wait for the process to follow its course. Evictions are not simple, and they take time. A good eviction attorney will ensure it takes as little time as possible. You just need to hang in there.

Need a good eviction attorney?

SD Law is a Cape Town law firm with expertise in property matters including rental housing, eviction and conveyancing. We can help you resolve your eviction case swiftly and legally. Give eviction attorney Simon Dippenaar a call or send a WhatsApp to 086 099 5146. You can also email Simon at sdippenaar@sdlaw.co.za.

Further reading:

Jun 15
0

Tenant risk: 5 metrics to consider

By | Evictions, Lease Agreement, Tenants

Spotting high-risk tenants

At Eviction Lawyers South Africa, we help property owners and landlords manage their tenant relationships. Eviction should be a last resort. Avoiding the need for eviction starts with tenant selection. As this article from BizCommunity explains, there are certain risks to look out for. If you can avoid letting your property to high-risk tenants, you are in for a much smoother ride.
Reprinted from BizCommunity – 2021-06-07
According to the results from the annual PayProp State of the Rental Industry survey, over 50% of participants said finding good tenants in the current market is their biggest challenge.
tenant risk

Image source: www.pexels.com

“In the coming months, it will be even more important for rental agents to be able to distinguish a low-risk tenant from a high-risk one, thereby better serving the needs of their customers,” says PayProp head of data analytics Johette Smuts.

In a recent follow-up report, the quarterly PayProp Rental Index for Q1 2021, the company uses credit metrics to identify and analyse different tenant risk levels to further help agents be more informed when choosing prospective tenants. As Smuts says, “In a market where everyone is struggling to find good tenants, it pays to know what to look for!”

Smuts says that minimum-risk tenants represented almost 40% of the credit checks done through PayProp in Q1 2021 – slightly higher even than in Q1 2020. More than 60% of tenants fall into the combined minimum- and low-risk categories, while only a quarter were labelled as high-risk. “While this seems counterintuitive, it could be that high-risk tenants fall out of the vetting process even before a credit check is done.”

1. Income

Smuts explains that minimum-risk tenants tend to have higher incomes than those in other categories, and by quite a margin. “In Q1, this group had an average monthly net income of close to R42,000 – almost R8,000 higher than low-risk tenants, and more than R15,000 more than high-risk tenants.

2. CPA and NLR accounts

Tenants across all risk categories have between 9 and 11 Credit Provider Association (CPA) accounts and National Loan Register (NLR) accounts.

Smuts says there is a fundamental difference between the two, with CPA accounts regarded as ‘good’ debt and NLR credit as ‘bad’ debt on credit checks. “You can expect a prospective tenant to have several CPA accounts, including things like insurance, mobile phone contracts, retail stores and vehicle finance,” she says.

“NLR accounts, on the other hand, are the ones you don’t want to see on a credit check. These include short-term loans from micro-lenders, usually with very high interest rates. A higher number of bad debt accounts can be indicative of a prospective tenant having needed additional funds to make it through the month or not qualifying for credit from other providers, both of which are warning signs.”

3. Major delinquencies

Unsurprisingly, high-risk tenants had more major delinquencies against them than other groups, at 41% of the tenant survey base compared to 25% of medium-risk tenants. A major delinquency can include various types of negative entries on an applicant’s credit record, such as judgements, notices, adverse accounts, etc. Less than 1% of minimum-risk tenants had a major delinquency against their name.

4. Debt

Riskier tenants tend to have a higher debt-to-income ratio than lower-risk ones, meaning they spend a higher percentage of their monthly income on debt repayments each month.

High-risk tenants both have a higher debt-to-income ratio (on average 47% in Q1) and spend smaller amounts on their debt repayments. The average high-risk tenant spent just over R12,500 a month on debt and other financial obligations, compared to minimum risk tenants, who spent almost R15,000 a month on repaying a lower average debt burden faster (25% of their income).

5. Credit score

Since tenants are placed into risk categories based on their credit score, minimum-risk tenants have higher (better) average credit scores than higher-risk tenants. The difference between the two is almost 100 points (690 vs 592).

Smuts says that in this time of economic difficulty, exacerbated by Covid-19 and tenants exiting the market, agents are well advised to have robust tenant selection partnerships in place.

SD Law is a law firm in Cape Town and Johannesburg with specialist eviction lawyers. If you are seeking an eviction, advise on drawing up a lease agreement, or help with troublesome tenants, we can advise you on how to act in the best interests of everyone involved. Contact Cape Town attorney Simon Dippenaar on 086 099 5146 or email sdippenaar@sdlaw.co.za.

Feb 10
0

David Mabuza’s assurance was misleading

By | COVID 19, Eviction news, Eviction notice, Eviction orders, Expropriation Bill, Farm evictions

Four months after the Deputy President, David Mabuza, assured South Africans that no farmer will be evicted from their farms under the government’s land redistribution programme, Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) officials have been going around giving farmers one-week notices to vacate their farms.

On 22 October 2020, while answering questions in the National Assembly on the government’s planned 700 000 hectare land redistribution programme, Mabuza unambiguously stated that “…those people that are currently occupying those farms (identified for redistribution), I don’t think there is any intention to forcefully remove people at this point in time”.

Mabuza’s assurance was obviously misleading because Mr Ivan Cloete, a successful pig farmer at Colenso farm in the Western Cape was recently served with a 7-day notice to vacate his farm by officials from the DALRRD’s Western Cape provincial offices. The claim by these officials that Mr Cloete does not qualify to continue practising his farming activities at Colenso farm is nothing but naked abuse of power designed to intimidate him into giving up his livelihood. The DA will not stand by and allow the use of dubious eviction orders to harass and victimise a defenceless farmer.

The unfair treatment of Mr Cloete appears to confirm well-founded fears among farmers that 700 000 hectare scheme was now being used as a cover by DALRRD officials to intimidate them into vacating their farms. What makes this state-sanctioned intimidation worse is that the farms of some of the farmers facing this intimidation do not form part of the 700 000 hectare program.

The DA has always been on record arguing that the chaotic approach to land reform will open up avenues for corrupt abuse of the process and disrupt the agricultural sector:

On 10 March 2020, I warned members of the Portfolio Committee that, even without data or information on the monitoring and evaluation of land reform, Departmental officials had been issuing eviction notices haphazardly.

During a committee session on 01 December 2020, I told committee members that farmers in the Western Cape, Gauteng and Mpumalanga who have been on the land for years, had received letters to vacate in the past year.

It is ominous that while the controversial section 25 amendment is being debated in Parliament, farmers are already facing unrelenting pressure to vacate their farms from a Department that has gone rogue. Mabuza and his colleagues in government have an obligation to stop this reckless targeting of farmers before it inflicts irreparable damage to the agricultural sector and the economy.

Reprinted from Politics Web by Annette Steyn

Simon Dippenaar & Associates, Inc. is a Cape Town law firm of specialist eviction lawyers, 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 if you are facing unlawful eviction.

Further reading: