KEY POINTS
- More than 70 tenants pursued in vain to turn their case into a class suit.
- TCDC made properties available for purchase to tenants although tenants refused to buy due to high prices in addition to feeling mistreated.
- According to court decisions every tenant needed separate case management because their individual situations were distinct from each other.
More than seventy families who live in Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC) properties lost their attempt at obtaining class action certification for their ownership dispute.
The tenants who had occupied their homes continuously since the past decades petitioned for authorization to hold onto their residences or claim recompensation for maintenance investments they undertook.
The properties in Butterworth and Mthatha under ECDC ownership emerged from the incorporation process that brought South Africa under Transkei homeland. Some of the properties’ occupants have stayed in their homes since passing three decades.
Landlords within the ECDC received the possibility to purchase their properties during September 2022 yet the offered prices failed to satisfy them which led to public auctions of the real estate assets.
Dispute over sales and Eastern cape tenants rights
The tenants maintain that the ECDC denied them their right to purchase property first and refused to repay for the house improvements they conducted. The corporation seeks to benefit from property sales where they executed maintenance work throughout many years.
The ECDC maintained it provided properties to Eastern cape tenants under beneficial conditions yet some tenants remained in arrears with their rentals. The corporation maintains it must offer homes on the market for their appropriate value.
Judge dismisses class action request
Judge Nicholas Mullins issued a ruling that dismissed the class action because individual tenant circumstances cannot be properly addressed with such suits. He declared tenants should present their concerns against ECDC separately since each case emerges differently.
