{"id":152355,"date":"2017-05-24T12:30:06","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T10:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/germistoncitynews.co.za\/?p=152355"},"modified":"2017-05-24T14:02:58","modified_gmt":"2017-05-24T12:02:58","slug":"property-sellers-advance-payments-clearance-certificates-scrapped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/news-headlines\/2017\/05\/24\/property-sellers-advance-payments-clearance-certificates-scrapped\/","title":{"rendered":"Property sellers: Advance payments for clearance certificates scrapped"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court of Appeal has ruled that municipalities can no longer demand that sellers of property pay for rates, fees and charges for months in advance before a rates clearance certificate can be issued.<\/p>\n<p>Until now the deeds office in South Africa needed a rates clearance certificate to prove that outstanding municipality bills had been paid before the registrar could transfer a <a href=\"http:\/\/homes.germistoncitynews.co.za\/\"><strong>property<\/strong><\/a>.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><div class=\"stream-item stream-item-in-post stream-item-inline-post aligncenter\"><\/div>\n<p>The landmark case dealt with Nelson Mandela municipality and a private investment company, Amber Mountain Investments. \u00a0The municipality demanded that Amber Mountain Investments pay R1 million in advance for rates before the sale of their property could go through.<\/p>\n<p>The seller argued it was liable only for rates and taxes up to the date of transfer and not thereafter.<\/p><div class=\"stream-item stream-item-in-post stream-item-inline-post aligncenter\"><\/div>\n<p>Sellers can now refuse to pay rates and charges in advance beyond the date of the certificate when applying for a rates clearance certificate.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-144040\" src=\"https:\/\/albertonrecord.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/35\/2017\/05\/probeer.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"615\" height=\"340\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>New rules around SA property owners and utility bills<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>If a consumer receives a utility bill with charges older than three years, they cannot be held liable for these amounts, as the charges have prescribed. Prescribed means that the law considers the charges that have prescribed as being too old to enforce the creditors\u2019 right to collect.<\/li>\n<li>It is not the duty of the consumer to read meters and determine their actual consumption. As a result a consumer will not be considered to have acknowledged a debt when the municipality has failed to provide details.<\/li>\n<li>The prescription period of three years starts when the municipality should have taken actual readings and invoiced the consumer.<\/li>\n<li>The municipality has a duty to carry out such readings and invoice consumers at its convenience, but at reasonable intervals.<\/li>\n<li>Where no records of regular actual readings are available to ascertain how much of a bill for several years has prescribed, the industry standard should be applied. This is done by averaging out the consumption over the months between the two readings and then using that average to calculate the consumer\u2019s liability for the remaining period.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/174931\/new-water-and-lights-rules-sa-homeowners-need-to-know-before-selling\/\" target=\"_blank\">BusinessTech<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Looking for that dream property in Germiston<strong>?<\/strong>\u00a0Remember to visit our <a href=\"http:\/\/homes.germistoncitynews.co.za\/\"><strong>Homes<\/strong><\/a> platform.<\/p>\n<div class=\"stream-item stream-item-below-post-content\">\n<div class='tenancy_slot tenancy_slot_1 jannah_ad' style='display: none;' data-query-id='ee339140c523b0864237efba121737fc'><\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Property sellers no longer need to pay municipalities in advance for utilities in order to obtain rates clearance certificates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7782,"featured_media":152356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Caxton Central","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[14694,14695,14696],"class_list":["post-152355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news-headlines","tag-new-rules-rates-clearance-certificates","tag-new-rules-sa-property-utility-bills","tag-rates-payments-in-advance-scrapped"],"amp_enabled":true,"category_labels":{"Category":"News","SubCategory":"Local news"},"tag_labels":["new rules rates clearance certificates","new rules SA property utility bills","rates payments in advance scrapped"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7782"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}