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Property owners in the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) should be aware of the amended values attributed to their properties by the City’s General Valuation Roll 2023 (GVR 2023). From what we have gathered, the CoJ has indicated around 42 000 property owners objected to the value of their properties, following the City’s valuation objection process which ran between 15 February and 5 May 2023.
Many property owners missed the original objection deadline of 31 March 2023, due to poor communication by the CoJ, resulting in an extension for objections being granted to 5 May 2023. While we imagine that many property owners took up the extended objection deadline (following extensive media coverage by OUTA and other civil society organisations), it appears to OUTA that despite the extension of the objection period, insufficient engagement and notices were served to enable more property owners to object to their property values reflected on GVR 2023. More evidence to this fact stems from the higher number of objections in the GVR 2018 process some five years ago, when over 50 000 objections were received by the CoJ from approximately 850 000 registered properties, which were subjected to a far lower valuation increase at that time. Today, there are almost 950 000 properties and less objections have been raised on a GVR which appears to have excessively high valuations.
“Something is amiss here and we need the City of Joburg’s management to be extremely transparent in this process,” says Wayne Duvenage, OUTA’s CEO.
Since the closure of OUTA’s survey, wherein over 3 200 property owners indicated an average of 37% increase to the value of their CoJ property values between June and July 2023, we have been made aware of a reduction in the CoJ’s application of some property values reflected in their August invoices.
What we don’t know however, is the extent of these adjustments in August and whether these reductions have been applied only to those who objected, or across the board to all property valuations. We will also request the City’s management to explain what has transpired and will ask if a credit of the difference applied to adjusted invoices will be made.
Furthermore, we would like to know why the CoJ reduced the rebate value of the first R350 000 exempt from property rates to R300 000. This extra R50 000 will add a further R35 million per month to the CoJ’s coffers.
Over time, the CoJ property tariff charges have increased at inflation levels, whereas the property values have not kept pace with such trends. This in turn means that residents are being squeezed for more taxes from the CoJ, when their property values have not increased as much as depicted in GVR 2023, whilst service delivery has declined significantly.
Did you miss the objection and appeal window? Contact Rates Watch for assistance to request the revaluation of your property in terms of section 78.
Read the full article on the OUTA website here.