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.
By 23 August 2019 the title deed was received and handed over to Mrs Mabuya. 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 fifth story of five of the TSC’s clients who are now the proud, legal owners of their properties:
Mrs Mabuya: Primary Transfer
In April 2019, Mrs Mabuya approached the TSC asking for assistance with accessing her title deed. On investigation we discovered this was the second case whereby a client had signed a site and service agreement with the City of Cape Town in 2017, but the transfer had not taken place. The TSC followed up with the conveyancers involved and in May 2019 received confirmation that the transfer had been registered in the Deeds Office. By 23 August 2019 the title deed was received and handed over to our client.
Source: Housing Finance Africa
