The Transaction Support Centre has been open for just over a year. In the beginning, the TSC team at the Desmond Tutu Sports and Recreation Centre in Makahaza, Khayelitsha, Cape Town, met with local community groups, the local councillor, estate agents, conveyancers and residents themselves, to explain the services they offered: assisting buyers and sellers transact formally, and ensuring that property owners can realise the asset value of their housing by legally owning their claim with a title deed. It has been difficult but rewarding and they are starting to gain traction and see some successes.
Ms Tekula finally received the title to a property she purchased almost 14 years ago. Image credit: Housing Finance Africa
As at 17 September 2019, the TSC has facilitated seven title deed handovers and has another five transfers currently lodged in the Deeds Office. The process to regularise title and hand over a title deed to the rightful property owner is complex, time consuming and expensive. It takes months and depends on the active participation of so many of our partners: officials at the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape Department of Human Settlements, lenders, our conveying partners Norton Rose Fulbright and Abrahams & Gross, and others. We are therefore delighted to report that the TSC was able to regularise four informal cash sales, provide the first transfer on a property for three properties, and facilitate two intestate transfers and one donation transfer.
This is the second of five stories of the TSC’s clients who are now the proud, legal owners of their properties:
Ms Tekula: Informal cash sale regularised
In October 2018, Ms Tekula approached the TSC asking for assistance with regularising an informal cash sale from 2005. The client brought with her a street committee letter detailing the R40 000 cash transaction from 2005 and a few months later came back to the TSC with the contact details and residential address of the seller. Fortunately, the seller was living in Khayelitsha, which made it relatively easy for the TSC to facilitate the signing of a formal sale agreement. However, due to a glitch in the transfer process, the first lodgement was rejected and the TSC had to go back to the seller to resign some paperwork – this time he was less co-operative, which resulted in a delay to re-lodge. Nevertheless, the transfer was re-lodged on the 23 July 2019 and on 23 August 2019, Ms Tekula finally received the title to a property she purchased almost 14 years ago. The TSC has subsequently assisted Ms Tekula with a will and are in the process of assisting her to access a building subsidy to complete a top structure on her plot.
Source: Housing Finance Africa
