City Says Sorry to Sectional Title Owners

The City of Cape Town today apologised to some 70 000 sectional title owners for an error in the computer programme used to determine their property valuations.

The City's Valuations Department said the error had resulted in incorrect valuations on the sectional title units concerned. These ranged from between 10 to 200 percent and affected approximately 1 800 of the City's 4 400 sectional title schemes.

It said flaws in the programme had resulted in the affected units being "double counted", with the computer seeing a single unit as two or three dwellings.

The Department said it would now lodge objections to the values reflected on the Valuations Roll and would communicate the revised valuations by sending a copy of the objection notices to owners. These would be sent out during the course of this week and next.

The Department stressed, however, that owners would still be entitled to lodge objections of their own to the amended valuations.

It said many of the sectional title units were rented out by owners, and the City did not have addresses for many of them. It would therefore courier the letters to managing agents, requesting their assistance in forwarding them to the owners. The City would reimburse managing agents for this.

Given the delays caused by the computer error, the City recognised that more time was needed for the valuations objections process and the closing date would now be extended to 30 April for sectional title owners.

The City Manager, Valuations Director and Chief Finance Officer extended their apologies to affected owners, managing agents and other parties affected by the error.

In addition, the City has opened seven more venues where objections can be lodged, adding to the 12 already in existence. Owners could contact telephone no 086 010 3089 to find out where their nearest objection venue is.

Lastly, the City said it had received a total of 5 000 valuations objections, from a total of 735 000 registered property owners. Along with the 70 000 incorrect sectional title valuations, this amounted to 10 percent of all valuations across the city.

Issued by:
Communication and Marketing
City of Cape Town
Tel: 021 400 2201
Fax: 021 957 0023

Media Queries:

Chris Gavor
Tel: 021 400 1345