TENANT RIGHTS IN TERMS OF THE SET-OFF RENT CLAUSE

Annual Survey of South African Law, 2008

The process of lodging complaints, procedure and proceedings of the South African Rental Housing Tribunals. A dispute is either mediated by a mediator or heard before a panel of at least three commissioners / members. Proceedings are recorded; parties take an oath or an affirmation, lead evidence, cross-examine and in general, follow more or less formal court proceedings. The Tribunal has both an inquisitorial (like the small claims court) as well as an accusatorial approach. An inspection in loco may be held. The Rental Housing Act became law on 1 August 2000. It regulates the relationship of parties to a residential tenancy agreement. It informs tenant and landlord of residential dwellings about their rights, duties and responsibilities when they enter into or are about to conclude an oral (verbal) or written contract of lease.

2001

To All the tenants who are struggling to live an honest life, who inspired me, directed my research, shaped it and in a sense-co-wrote it. Without them, this study would not have been undertaken. CONTENTS

2001

2013

Environment and Urbanization, 1997

This paper focuses on the work of one NGO, the Organization of Civic Rights, which works on a range of housing and urban renewal issues in Durban. The organization is unusual in that it has been working on issues related to tenant rights since 1984 with a particular focus on the central city areas. The paper starts with a general introduction to the situation of tenants in South Africa and then describes the four different strategies used by the organization in its work with tenants: education and empowerment for tenants, advocacy, networking and tenants' action groups.

The jurisprudence (case law) of the South African courts (especially the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal) has significantly contributed to the right of access to adequate housing, enshrined in section 26 of the Constitution. The courts have supplemented the legal framework by developing a number of progressive legal principles that should be upheld in eviction cases. The jurisprudence has therefore led to the development of a new cluster of relationships between the parties involved in eviction proceedings, a cluster of relationships that is characterised by a series of rights and obligations pertaining to various parties. Yet despite years of litigation and a host of progressive judgments municipalities have been hesitant, unwilling or unable to act on the obligations laid down in case law. It is amid this complexity that this report seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of the jurisprudence on evictions and alternative accommodation, and the contingent obligations on municipalities in respect of the provision of alternative accommodation. It is hoped that the report might act as a to guide activists, communities and public interest law practitioners caught up in eviction related struggles, as well as local government officials who are tasked with devising and implementing housing policy. This report is published by the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI).

This report, which builds on a first edition published in 2013, responds to the fact that neither property owners nor municipalities have fully come to terms with the significant paradigm shift in the law relating to eviction and urban regeneration. Despite years of litigation and a host of progressive court judgments, which have substantially contributed to the constitutional right of access to adequate housing, municipalities like the City of Johannesburg are still failing to fulfill their duties in relation to evictions and the provision of alternative accommodation. The report includes the latest developments in the law relating to housing rights and evictions and aims to highlight what they have contributed towards South Africa's housing and evictions jurisprudence. Stuart Wilson co-authored the second edition of the report. The report was published by the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI).

2014

There are at present seven functional provincial Rental Housing Tribunals (RHTs) of which the KwaZulu-Natal Tribunal appears not to have regulations. The Legal Resources Centre brought an application before the Durban High Court on behalf of two tenants who were aggrieved at the RHT’s ruling of a cost order against them, directing them to pay their;landlord’s legal costs. They challenged the KwaZulu-Natal RHT for allegedly operating without regulations. The order sought was that all the rulings of the RHT be declared null and void and the establishment of the RHT be set aside. Since the case is sub judice this article will examine briefly the role of regulations within the context of the Rental Housing Act 50 of 1999 (RHA) and the opposing views regarding the need for regulations. Generally, regulations are subordinate legislation issued in terms of enabling statutes and are needed to clarify key definitions and establish how the State and statutory bodies will implement the laws. I...