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eviction lawyer Archives | Eviction Lawyers South Africa

Mar 17
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Communicare tenants in Thornton flats face eviction today

By | Eviction news, Eviction notice, Eviction orders, Evictions, Rent
Eleven families living at the Communicare Albatross flats in Thornton face eviction today after their matter was struck off the Western Cape High Court’s roll on Friday. Picture: Tracey Adams / African News Agency (ANA)
Eleven families living at the Communicare Albatross flats in Thornton face eviction today after their matter was struck off the Western Cape High Court’s roll on Friday. Picture: Tracey Adams / African News Agency (ANA)

Cape Town – Despite their efforts, 11 families living at the Communicare Albatross flats in Thornton face eviction today after their matter was struck off the Western Cape High Court’s roll on Friday.

The tenants had approached the court to prevent Communicare from evicting them and others at various properties.

They also asked for the suspension of the chairperson, for a forensic audit into the institution’s affairs, and for an order preventing Communicare from transferring assets to its subsidiary, Good Find Properties.

The tenants said they were being forced to sign new leases with Good Find Properties at prices they could not afford.

The Western Cape High Court had granted Communicare an eviction order in November.

“Advocate Dondolo reported to the assembly outside the Cape High Court that the Albatross file was stolen from the High Court Archives.

’’At the beginning of the court proceedings,the clerk of the court informed the court judge that the content of the file had disappeared,” the Communicare Tenant Beneficiaries said.

“This exposes the 11 families at Albatross flats in Thornton to being evicted by Communicare on Monday (today). Communicare has been trying to evict our tenants since August 2019.

’’Advocate Mbenyane will reinstate the Albatross case and will request an inquiry at the high court as to the reasons for the Albatross file being stolen,” they added.

Communicare said the attorneys representing the tenants had not shown up.

“The applicants and their attorneys did not pitch for court so the matter was struck off the roll. The eviction order stands for the sheriff to execute,” said the stakeholder relations officer at Communicare, Megan Lennert.

Last week Communicare announced it would be selling all its Ruyterwacht properties.

This was not received well by tenants who say they want the title deeds, accusing the organisation of trying to make a profit from assets.

In an open letter to Communicare, tenant and chairperson of the Ruyterwacht Community Association Mandisa Zamile said: “We, the Communicare Tenant Beneficiaries from Ruyterwacht, reject the unlawful sales offer to buy the social housing rental stock in Ruyterwacht.

“We know, unless you can prove otherwise, that during apartheid years, Communicare illegally grabbed the social housing rental stock and land from the apartheid social housing agency called the Citizens Housing League.”

Communicare said it was the legal owner of the property and the sales would go ahead.

Reprinted from IOL some links added by SD Law

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 on0860995146 or simon@sdlaw.co.za if you need advice on the eviction process or if you are facing unlawful eviction.

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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.

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Feb 01
0

Protest over ’heartless’ manner in which elderly are being moved from Cape Flats old-age homes

By | COVID 19, Eviction news, Eviction notice, Eviction orders, Eviction videos, Evictions, Protests
In protest over the CPOA’s old-age homes being closed down, a peaceful picket is being held at Nerina Place in Bishop Lavis today. Picture: Vanessa Adrianse
In protest over the CPOA’s old-age homes being closed down, a peaceful picket is being held at Nerina Place in Bishop Lavis today. Picture: Vanessa Adrianse

Cape Town – The Cape Peninsula Organisation for the Aged (CPOA) has been slated over the ’’heartless’’ manner in which it has gone about closing three old-age homes on the Cape Flats due to financial constraints brought on by the Covid-19 lockdown.

In protest over the CPOA’s old-age homes being closed down, a peaceful picket is being held at Nerina Place in Bishop Lavis today, with only 50 people taking part due to Covid-19 lockdown regulations. Nerina Place has about 100 residents.

The protesters comprise residents from Bishop Lavis, Bonteheuwel and Heideveld.

The Nerina Place residents are due to be moved tomorrow and the protesters want it to be suspended with immediate effect. They are also calling for a thorough audit to be done of the CPOA’s books, urging the government to step in immediately.

Picture: Vanessa Adrianse

The CPOA said in a statement last month Nerina Place, Lilyhaven Place in Bonteheuwel and Oakhaven in Heideveld are being shut down. Despite subsidies from the Department of Social Development, the CPOA said it has accumulated losses amounting to R265 million in the past 10 years.

It added that ’’after long and intensive discussions between senior management and the board of directors, CPOA has decided it must close three of its five welfare homes’’.

Vanessa Adrianse, from Heideveldt Mothers For Justice, is incensed by the fact that there has been no consultation with the community regarding the old-age homes being closed down.

Adrianse believes it is tantamount to an “eviction’’. She says the community would have found a solution had they been consulted.

’’All the community organisations in Heideveld have partnered on this protest. Why must the elderly be moved during the heart of the Covid pandemic? The CPOA is heartless and there has been no consultation with the community organisations.

Picture: Vanessa Adrianse

’’Where are they taking these people? We haven’t been informed. If they are closing down because of a lack of funding, the CPOA could have come and spoken to us and we could have made a plan. We could have taken over and applied to government for assistance.

’’The old people are sitting on the stoep of the old-age home at the moment and pleading with us to prevent them from being evicted. Saying the elderly are being ’moved’ is just a nice way of saying they are being evicted, because if someone doesn’t want to go, then you force them.

’’Sometimes their families don’t care about them any more and then after so many years, they become each other’s family.

’’They don’t want to be moved. They are happy here. Some of them are not from Bishop Lavis and they get visits like once every two months. Now they are moving further away.

’’Surely they won’t have place for everyone in one place. If they are all going to one place, why move them from a place where they are comfortable.

“If there is enough funding to take them to another place, then why don’t they use the funds to keep them here.

“Other questions that need answering are about what will happen to the pension and income of the old people here. Why not use that pension to help sustain them?’’

There is also a concern that if they don’t rent out the rooms to people in the area when it closes down, gangsters will vandalise the building and people in the area won’t be safe.

“That is why we are protesting here today, to highlight all these issues,’’ said Adrianse.

Reprinted from IOL

Links added by SD Law

*Simon Dippenaar & Associates, Inc. is a Cape Town law firm of specialist eviction lawyers, 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.

Further reading: