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Johann Rupert, South Africa’s wealthiest person, says he and his associates will take the decision by the Nkomanzi Valuation Appeal Board to slap an about R1.3bn valuation on the Leopards Creek golf estate on review.
Rupert told Business Day that they have no choice but to seek judicial recourse in a long-drawn dispute that has seen the parties spend a fortune litigating.
“The decision by the Valuation Appeal Board is perplexing as it has already been overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeal. They ignored the courts,” Rupert said.
The Supreme Court of Appeal in 2024 ruled that the Valuation Appeal Board (VAB) of the Ehlanzeni district in Mpumalanga erred in ignoring expert evidence brought by Leopard Creek in its long-drawn valuation dispute with the Nkomazi Local Municipality.
The court then ruled that a differently constituted valuation appeal board be set to evaluate the property’s value. It is this appeal board that has ruled that the property is worth R1.3bn, in line with what the previous appeal board ruled.
Leopard Creek, which hosts the annual Alfred Dunhill Cup, is on the banks of the Crocodile River and borders the Kruger National Park. The 355ha facility has an 18-hole golf course designed by Gary Player, a clubhouse complex measuring 3,600m², about 97 residential sites, tennis and squash courts, a swimming pool and gym, among other facilities.
Rupert owns 50 stands, and Leopard Creek Investments owns 47, which are not for sale. Rupert’s 50 stands afford him four memberships per stand.
The long-running dispute dates back to 2017 when the municipality placed a R1.3bn valuation on the property. Leopard Creek disagreed and said a private valuation company put the price at R450m.
Rupert told Business Day in 2024 that the dispute was causing economic damage in the region as he wanted to build a hotel and at least two hotel groups wanted to invest, but there was no certainty about taxes and rates.
“We had a legal agreement, a contract. They [the municipality] accepted the money for a decade and then arbitrarily tore up the agreement and quadrupled the bill,” Rupert said at the time.
“They provide nothing. We do our own roads and our own water, and we buy electricity directly from Eskom. We told them to cut off our services, but they said they couldn’t because they don’t provide any.”
Please read the article written by Kabelo Khumalo on theBusiness Day website here.