Making sense of the land reform issue

If the land reform issue is giving you concern about buying property for sale in Durban, then this article will certainly assist in bringing you some clarity with regards to the situation.

At first, this discussion caused a lot of tension and even a little panic amongst homeowners and potential buyers, but since then there has been a lot of information provided by President Ramaphosa which details what the objective is.

It has been made clear that people should not expect wide-scale land grabs, and nationalisation will not take place. Homeowners can also take peace in the fact that property rights will continue to be protected, and no illegal grabbing of land will be tolerated by the government.

These discussions have not only taken place in the country with the relevant bodies and stakeholders, but President Ramaphosa has also detailed the issue with the Chinese president as well as Theresa May, the UK Prime Minister. During these talks, Ramaphosa had said that South Africa has assessed the land reform procedures in other countries, and will not be making the same mistakes.

He pointed out that all planning done will be in line with strengthening the economy and the perception that property rights will be eroded is misplaced, as the aim is actually to strengthen these during the process.

Experts in the industry are assisting in getting the correct information out there, and Stuart Manning, the CEO of the Seeff Group, has urged the public not to listen to the misinformation and noise across social media platforms and other media.

There has not been any talk of residential property being affected by land reform, with President Ramaphosa actually going on record to discuss the process of looking at unused land, derelict buildings and land being held for speculative reasons.