LEGAL
What are the
Legalities of Evicting
your Tenant?
Tenant Evictions and Legal Contracts
BY MARLON SHEVELEW
E
victions of tenants in residential
properties are unfortunately a necessary
evil for landlords.
Ironically, tenants are but one of the ‘group’
of unlawful occupiers that rental property
attorneys encounter in court and, relatively
speaking, are far more accommodating than
squatters whom have occupied a residential
property without any right in law or in fact, or
a property owner who has lost ownership by
way of foreclosure but feels the need to remain
in the property.
The Prevention Of Illegal Eviction and
Unlawful Occupation Of Land Act – no. 19
of 1998 (PIE) regulates the residential eviction
process. It is the only lawful procedure of
ejecting an unlawful occupier from a residential
property.
What landlords need to realise is that an
eviction application can only be launched if the
tenant is an unlawful occupier.
18 Residential E-Book 2016
In other words, a tenant will have been
obliged to receive notice to remedy a breach;
for example, a non-rental payment. Moreover,
only 20 days after the date of such demand
had passed can a lease be cancelled. A period
to voluntarily vacate the premises can then
be provided. In the absence of the voluntary
vacation an eviction application procedure can
be commenced.
The Act regulating residential evictions is
unaffected by the imminent Rental Housing
Amendment Act, save for potential weaponry
that the tenant may raise in opposition to the
proposed eviction, such as a failure by the
landlord to attend to certain maintenance
requirements etc.
More of a concern, however, is the Consumer
Protection Act, a statute that will be covered in
future articles.
A letter of cancellation irrevocably brings a
lease between the landlord and the tenant to a
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