Property developers and building owners are apparently owed millions of rands by the Johannesburg City Council because they have been incorrectly billed for rates, taxes, electricity and water.
Renney Plit, chairman of the Property Owners’ and Managers’ Association says that building owners in the inner city area have converted office blocks to residential accommodation, but the council has not made any allowances for this when charging them for electricity or calculating their rates bills.
He says he is owed R12-million by the council because he has overpaid for services in the past two years. He points out that the electricity charges for offices are 70% higher than those for residential buildings.
Plit says that even though the council issued the occupancy certificates for the converted office blocks they have still not rectified the electricity charges and keep billing him at the commercial rather than residential rate for every unit in the building.
City officials now say that they will have to send out their inspectors to each one of the buildings that has been converted and ascertain that they are indeed being used for residential purposes.
Plit warns that smaller property developers or private investors could be forced into liquidation because the council has refused to rectify its bills and has not repaid money that has been incorrectly paid to it.
To complicate matters, Plit says, the council is tardy in reading the meters to ascertain actual consumption and in one of his buildings he has received interim readings for a period of 12 months even though council regulations stipulate that meters must be read at least once every six months.
City of Joburg head of finance Parks Tau admits that there have been problems, but claims that they were due to “teething problems” with a new computer system. He says the problems will be resolved by December.
What he doesn’t say is when Plit will get back the millions he is owed by the council.
Readers' Comments Have a comment about this article? Email us now.
Advise property owners to check the calculations as my corrected account, has been over by 10000kw, and charged.
The programme seems to be calculating numbers as currency hence the mistakes.
Each unit should be receiving the basic nil amount, instead the whole building is given one nil amount i.e. 4kl water free and x kw free as if it were one household. - Su Torrie
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