During the recent CAHF Transaction Support Centre (TSC): Lesson Learned webinar, consensus was order of the day.
Image credit: TSC
One must look at Affordable Housing in the bigger picture rather than trying to confine it to a certain monetary bracket. Generally, the views expressed were around simplifying the process as well as the numerous bodies one must go through to end up owning a house. These exclude the financing hurdles one needs to go through and some of these are slow and tedious causing frustration.
Within the recommendations of the TSC webinar attended by 196 people from all sides of the housing coin, the following government and quasi-government bodies were noted as the ones the process must go through. While some are downright incompetent, others suffer from being under resourced; both financially and staff quota.
These are the bodies:
Dept of Agriculture, Rural Development and Land Reform
Registrar of Deeds
National Dept of Human Settlements
Western Cape Dept of Human Settlements (the TSC was conducted in Cape Town (CoCT) but this would apply to all regional HS departments)
Municipalities – various departments
Dept of Justice
Master’s Office
Dept of Home Affairs
CoCT- Tenure admin and Transfers (again all local departments dealing with this aspect)
CoCT -Property Value Chain
National Credit Regulator and formal lenders
A web indeed!
The recommendations were:
Develop a more accessible and affordable formal property transfer system
Revise or remove Section 10A and 10B of the Housing Act
Appoint a commissioner under the Land Titles Adjustment Act to resolve intractable cases
Review process to obtain a VA copy of title deeds
Develop a set of clear service protocols to manage common barriers to transfer that arise at municipal level
The recommendations went further to deceased estates, increasing capacity at the Master’s Office
Also, recommendations relating to primary transfers, tracking transfer process and whereabouts of title deed
Review and improve current processes for FLISP administration.
Copies of the full document can be found on the CAHF Africa website.
