TUESDAY, 10.30AM:
A LEADING property services group has called for landlords to be held criminally liable for allowing their properties to fall into an uninhabitable state.
Increasingly high lending rates will deter developers from investing in residential properties, according to Trafalgar Property and Financial Services CEO Neville Schaefer. He suggests South Africa should take an example from the United Kingdom and prosecute landlords who allow their properties to deteriorate to a state not fit for human habitation.
The high bond rates are reducing margins landlords budget for maintenance and repair, Schaefer said, resulting in an increasing number of properties falling into disrepair.
“There is little prospect of developers investing in residential developments with lending rates as high as they are now … the outlook is gloomy for those who cannot afford to purchase their own homes,” he said. Referring to a recent report by the UK government that calls for restoration of elderly houses and for landlords to be penalised for squalid conditions, Schaeffer said the shortage of housing in South Africa has led tenants to accept renting substandard properties — to the benefit of landlords.
As the UK report suggests, he said, South Africa should consider changes to the law to introduce fines for landlords failing to comply with repair notices and should consider making it an offence not to maintain a property in a condition adequate for human habitation.