Do squatters have more rights than property owners in South Africa? – Mail and Guardian

As squatting rates rise, the incentive to develop property and rent it out plummets. (File photo by ANNA ZIEMINSKI/AFP)

Why should illegal squatters have more rights than property owners who have worked hard to acquire and maintain their properties?

Technically this is not true. However, under the current law, squatters appear to be able to deal harshly not only with private property owners and landlords, but even with local authorities.

In a community near where I live, a long battle with squatting tenants recently finally came to an end. The occupants were dangerous drug addicts and were reported to steal from neighbors and manipulate sympathetic community members into charity.

Earlier this year, a court ordered the squatters to vacate the house where they had lived rent-free for more than three years.

The story gets worse.

The landlord was sympathetic to their plight and offered the squatters cash incentives amounting to tens of thousands of rands for vacating the premises. The settlers refused.

After law enforcement eventually evicted them, they began squatting on the side of the road, building a shack on the side of another private citizen’s home.

Their pit bull was kept off-leash when not being exercised outdoors and would chase homeowners and tenants while they walked their dogs.

It took weeks for law enforcement to finally demolish the shack and evict the squatters again.

This is because squatters could manipulate ineffective officials and police officers by telling them sob stories and outright lies about waiting for bureaucratic decisions to be made.

After the homeowner was able to regain control of his property, he discovered that everything had been stolen. Electrical wiring, metal, geyser, sink, toilet. All.

His appeal? Nothing. Law enforcement agencies refuse to do anything. This process was so tedious that it was simply not worth pursuing a criminal case. What about a civil lawsuit? There is nothing to take in the lawsuit.

Similar stories are circulating throughout South Africa. We are trained to empathize. And maybe we should do that. To the point.

The point is that there are plenty of people who have been dealt worse cards than many squatters, but they don’t use that as an excuse to commit a crime. And squatting is and should be considered a crime equivalent to outright theft. Perhaps even worse.

The rate of squatting tenants, according to the TPN Squat Index, has increased from 3.48% to 3.71% since the end of 2023. While we can easily hate landlords for doing their job, at the end of the day, it is their property that they are using. purchased and invested money. No one has the right not to pay the agreed rent.

As squatting rates rise, the incentive to develop property and rent it out plummets. This means fewer homes for people across the board, which means higher rents for the remaining homes as supply cannot meet demand.

Under the law, landlords do not have the right to evict tenants who refuse to pay rent. A court order is required for eviction.

This can be an expensive undertaking that can take years. In the above example, it took three years to obtain a court order and months to implement it.

In another case, a landlord and her husband spent R17 000 on lawyers trying to evict tenants who owed more than R80 000 in rent and utilities. The tenants have not yet been evicted.

Another landlord was owed R81 000 in unpaid rent and a further R57 000 for water and electricity. They have spent R40 000 on legal fees and have yet to receive a court date.

While there are reasons to prohibit summary evictions of squatters without a court order, the process needs to change. Victims should not be required to pay huge amounts of legal fees and wait an inordinate amount of time just to get a criminal trespasser removed from their land.

This process needs to be optimized. Presentation of the lease agreement to law enforcement and proof of non-payment should be sufficient to evict the squatters. A legal eviction should not take more than a month.

So is there a long-term solution to South Africa’s squatting problem?

The Democratic Alliance (DA) proposed bill to prevent illegal evictions and illegal occupation of land should help in the fight against mass squatting on public lands. This makes organized efforts to illegally seize land illegal. What should already be a crime.

The bill also contains other provisions to make the process more streamlined and fair to a municipality attempting to evict rogue tenants.

But how can you get rid of the need to squat altogether? In the case of the drug addicts in my anecdote and many of the criminals mentioned above, we need simplified legal processes to disincentivize non-payment.

But for massive illegal land grabs, we need reforms that give people the ability to pay rent.

Solving the unemployment problem by liberalizing the economy will go a long way.

Make it easier for people to start and run a business, and make it easier to hire and fire workers.

Unions need to intervene in many aspects of business because they actively prevent companies from hiring workers. Moreover, BEE needs to be abandoned as it stifles the growth ambitions of any business.

As businesses expand their operations and are no longer constrained by rigid labor laws, they will hire more people, generating more income.

In addition, consideration should be given to rezoning more areas for housing. Unnecessary and bloated office buildings need to be examined to see if they can be converted into much more useful apartments.

Defeating the construction mafia through surgical strikes by law enforcement and repealing related legislation will also help in building more houses.

Overall, what is important is the protection of property rights. Without guarantees that our property will legally remain ours, there is no incentive to invest, save, or prosper.

Nicholas Wood-Smith is an economic historian, policy analyst, author of more than twenty books, and senior fellow at the Free Market Foundation.