MBOMBELA – Conveyancers in the city are in a state of panic since the municipality’s new by-law on spatial planning and land use management (Spluma) came into effect at the Deeds Office. It is a by-law which they themselves seem unable to implement.
The regulation requires that a Section 70 certificate be issued by Mbombela Local Municipality (MLM) for any land to be transferred or registered. The Deeds Office has been requiring this document since May 1.
This certificate is over and above the clearance certificate needed from the municipality which states that the seller does not owe outstanding rates and tariffs.
An application, and affidavit, that no construction has been added onto the structure or additional structures have been added without approval and that the structures remain within the lands’ boundaries needs to be submitted by the prospective seller.
It is then “subject to proof to the satisfaction of the municipality of compliance with the requirements”, pertaining to the payment of funds or penalties for contraventions.
It has to be approved by a number of different departments in the municipality, including urban planning, treasury, Sembcorp Silulumanzi and traffic.
One conveyancer, who spoke to Lowvelder on condition of anonymity, said it has created a bottleneck.
“Now that the Deeds Office requires this, there is hysteria in the municipality because they are being flooded with applications. They are falling behind. Apparently they receive as many as 400 per day. The point is that the municipality does not have enough people to handle the number of applications.
- Read more on MLM’s by-laws: New by-laws to regulate informal traders in city
“They can’t implement their own law. I don’t know if they are following the process. My logic tells me they have to send someone out to check that the information on the affidavit is correct. I don’t see it happening. If they did, it would take even longer.”
She said her office has begged, pleaded, asked nicely and threatened to try and expedite the process.
Moreover, the price for the application is set to increase at the beginning of next month, from R167 to R616.
“What lawyer can absorb that amount per application until the client pays them?”
Another agreed that is was a frustration as it delayed some transactions, but things were improving. He said on average it took three to four weeks for a certificate to be issued, “if all goes well,” whereas at the beginning it sometimes took up to five months.
“You just need to get your paperwork in order in good time as the seller has to sign a number of documents before you can apply.”
Another said she thought it was merely a matter of everyone getting accustomed to the new system. “We follow up on our applications every two weeks. Maybe it is necessary that they look at the structures. You can’t hurry the government. You just need to wait patiently.”
The first conveyancer concluded, “When we are issued with a Section 70 certificate we just say, ‘Hallelujah’ and don’t look back.”
Another lawyer Mr Richard Spoor recently drew attention with Facebook posts in which he stated, “Hard cash, Swiss watches or sexual favours are the payment medium of choice.”
He told Lowvelder he meant the post with tongue in cheek. However, this contends that the process paves the way for bribery.
“How do you prove that you don’t owe someone money or that you are in compliance with rules that you likely don’t even know exist? It places an inordinate amount of power in the hands of municipal officials to indefinitely block and frustrate property transactions, which is one of the most important economic decisions most people ever make.”
Mr Joseph Ngala, spokesman for MLM, did not respond to the newspaper’s detailed questions at the time of going to print.He would, however, say the municipality viewed the allegations making the rounds on social media about the municipality on the implementation of Spluma, in a very serious light.
- Read more about defamation: M’langa the place of plots and dirty politics
“(We) appeal to those purporting that such corrupt and underhand activities are taking place in the municipality to do the right thing and either register fraud cases with the police or report such to the municipality. They should, however, refrain from making such wild allegations in the media without substantiating them.”
• Was Spoor’s comment defamatory?
An anonymous reader contacted Lowvelder with the allegation that Spoor’s comment had been defamatory. The newspaper consulted various sources of defamation law as well as jurisprudence in this regard.
For a statement to be defamatory, it must be published and refer to a person or legal entity. A municipality cannot be the victim of defamation. This was confirmed by former deputy judge president Ms Jeannette Traverso in the Western Cape High Court in 2011.
Traverso stressed that “any subject must be free to express his opinion about the management of the local affairs without fear of legal consequences”.
For a person to be the victim of defamation, he must be identifiable from the defamatory statement. If a defamatory statement has been made, the wrongfulness of the statement may be rebutted if the person making the statement was making a joke.
• Will I be liable for sharing a defamatory post on Facebook?
The anonymous complainant said Spoor’s post had been shared more than 40 times. Although Spoor’s statement has not been declared defamatory by any authority, more than one local business addressed their employees about the dangers of sharing online posts following the incident.
If a Facebook user shares a defamatory status and is found liable for doing so in court, our law dictates that whoever shared the post, will be just as liable for defamation as he who had made the original post. This may result in the guilty party having to cough up a fine of up to R40 000.
