In 2025, a South African court approved the sale of a home over R50,974 in unpaid levies. The bank’s bond didn’t matter. The body corporate ranked first. The era of quiet non-payment is over.
If you own a sectional title unit in South Africa, there’s a good chance the people managing your single largest investment are doing so with almost no meaningful oversight. Not because of fraud. Not because of malice. But because the system was never designed to hold them accountable in the first place. This article breaks down exactly how that happens — and the three things that would fix it overnight.
Last Tuesday, I sat across a table from three trustees of a 60-unit sectional title scheme in the Southern Suburbs — a retired accountant, a marketing executive, and an engineer. Combined property ownership in the scheme: over R12 million. I asked them whether they’d reviewed their governance documentation against the CSOS 2025 Practice Directive. Blank stares. I asked when their rules were last lodged with CSOS. “When the building was registered,” one said. That was 2009. Then I told them that non-compliance can result in personal fines and imprisonment of up to ten years. The engineer put his coffee down.
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