News

Rates increase for properties used for education limited to 4.85% in July and in 2024.

Sandton City has lost its five-year battle against the City of Joburg’s rates, which the owner of the iconic shopping centre, Liberty Two Degrees (L2D), believes are unsustainable.

The City of Johannesburg has advertised its new General Valuation Roll and it is open from 15 February to 31 March.

There are still objection decisions outstanding for GV2018, along with several appeal hearings. The biggest challenge is that the terms of office of two of the three appeal boards come to an end at the end of March.

Rates Watch represented a client with sectional title industrial properties. During the objection process, we submitted evidence motivating lower property values which was disregarded by the municipal valuer and the original values remained unchanged. At the appeal hearing the municipal valuer accepted the same evidence and agreed to the pro-posed values which were exactly the same as those proposed in the objections. These values were confirmed by the appeal board.

Sakeliga and our local partners have initiated legal proceedings against National Government over the rolling state failure that enables the Enoch Mgijima Municipality’s collapse.

It is too early to panic about the property values in the City of Johannesburg’s new general valuation roll that is due to open next Wednesday (15  February), says Ben Espach director of valuations at Rates Watch

Property owners in Johannesburg will from Wednesday be able to view, inspect and/or object to their new property values online. This will run from 15 February to 31 March 2023 to allow for inspections and objections of the General Valuation Roll (GVR) 2023.

The cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town will be implementing new General Valuation Rolls in 2023, which will impact the rates and taxes paid by property owners.

One of our most exciting in-house projects is now up and running: Shebella is our new customer relationship management tool, which we have had custom-developed in order to streamline our work flow and processes.

Property base in the City of Johannesburg in 2023 has increased to a smashing over R1.5 trillion from over R1.4 trillion since 2018 when the last valuation was conducted. The increase represents a 12% in property base according to the General Valuation (GVR) 2023.

According to The Witness, “The Pietermaritzburg high court on Thursday handed down a judgment declaring the municipality’s rates increase for the 2019/2020 financial year unlawful.”

According to Property24, “The 2022 General Valuation roll for the City of Cape Town will be open for public inspection and objection on or about 21 February, which will bring about new rates charges based on the new valuations. The objection period will commence on or about 21 February 2023 and would like to close on 30th April 2023.”

At a stakeholder meeting held on 18 February, where the rates policy and credit control policy were discussed, the City of Johannesburg indicated the proposed category changes for 2022/23:

A new book on municipal property rates is currently in the process of publication, and will be a valuable reference guide for anyone needing to get to grips with property rates in South Africa. Ben Espach, one of our directors at Rates Watch, is a co-author of the book together with Lientjie Ackerman and Advocate Anthonie Viviers.

For many years, Rates Watch has believed that some municipalities have been getting away with the backdating of valuations in cases where they did not complete their work in time. This belief was put to the test at a recent appeal hearing at the Valuation Appeal Board for the City of Johannesburg (CoJ).