Property owners who neglect or abandon their buildings – mainly in shoddy, run-down suburbs or within Johannesburg’s inner-city – could face fines of up to R1-million. Tough new laws to prevent the hijacking of buildings are to be introduced from September this year.
The council will investigate any bad buildings and fines or court orders demanding compliance with the bylaws will be issued to the building’s owners.
This emerged at the Building Hijacking and Slum Lording Summit held in Johannesburg yesterday.
The fines also apply to people who hijack buildings and then let out rooms. These slumlords do not pay rates or service costs to the City of Joburg.
According to Nathi Mthethwa, Region E director of the inner-city said that the fines are currently limited to between R2k and R3k for an offence.
Mthethwa says that the fines are not a deterrent and mostly people just ignore them or sometimes pay them because the rental income they earn from the buildings is considerably more than the fines imposed.
Daleen van Wyk of Ramushu Mashile Twala Incorporated is helping the council draw up the new legislation. She says inspectors will be regularly sent out to inspect buildings that are in a state of decline.
She says that the signs of neglect are obvious and include broken windows, overgrown gardens, an accumulation of rubbish and over-crowding. Such buildings will be red-flagged and inspected.
Van Wyk says the council intends to monitor the payment of rates and services for all buildings in the inner city in order to establish if the body corporate is functioning and rates and service charges are being paid.
She says that buildings that have changed their consent use from business to residential without permission may also be fined. Moreover, owners who have made alterations to the buildings illegally will be targeted by the inspectors.
The council will investigate any bad buildings and fines or court orders demanding compliance with the bylaws will be issued to the building’s owners. If the recommendations in these notices were not implemented then the owners will face criminal action.
Van Wyk points out that the city will have the right to carry out repairs or maintenance on the buildings and then charge the owner or the tenants for the costs of these repairs.
Should these costs not be recovered the buildings will be forfeited to the council.
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