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Readers Letters

Rights and wrongs

I have some legal questions regarding renting and was hoping you could help me.

1) When you have a contract to rent a place for six months, can the owner force you to allow estate agents to come and hold show houses on a Sunday between 2pm and 5pm?

2) Let’s say these agents make a sale. Can they force you to leave before the lease expires?

3) I myself own property up in Centurion, which I am renting out. I moved from Centurion to Durban in March and stayed with my aunt for a while. My wife stayed behind to find a tenant. She found a tenant in April who was willing to rent from May, so I had to find a place for my family and me to live, since my aunt’s place is simply too small for all of us. An agent took me around and showed me a place in Sunningdale, Umhlanga. The place was being revamped. The agent promised me that all renovations would be completed by the time we had to move in, on 2 May. I met the agent there on 2 May and, apart from the new tiling in the en-suite bathroom, hardly anything on the Defect List had been completed. The place was also extremely dirty. I asked the agent how he and the owner could expect me to move into the place in its current condition, especially since my wife had recently given birth to our baby. There were problems like you wouldn’t believe: only one Kirsch rail in working order, cupboard doors falling off, shower door not fitted, broken windows, en-suite bathroom door not fitted, damp coming through the walls… I took photos of the unit with all the problems for good measure. I then contacted the owner and arranged for her to meet me at the unit. She explained that the previous contractor had been paid R20 000 but hadn’t completed the job. So, I brought along a contractor, my cousin, who quoted her R9 800 for the work the previous contractor hadn’t done. Later, he added an addendum, bringing the total quote to R10 630. The owner accepted the quote, but not in writing; she simply sent my cousin an SMS saying he would be paid and that he could commence work. He completed the work as agreed, yet to this day she still hasn’t paid him; not for his labour, nor for the expenses he incurred for doing the job, like materials, petrol, and phone calls to suppliers, saying she had to get the money back from the original contractor before she could pay my cousin. Now I am stuck in the middle; I have emailed the agent all the photos as well as a letter explaining what had happened. The agent has contacted the owner, who simply repeats that she hopes to get the money back from the previous contractor. And that’s that. The agent is no help. The owner is no help. What are my rights? And what are my cousin’s rights? 

Andy McPherson of law firm Smith Tabata Buchanan Boyes responds:

1. The answer to this really depends on the terms of the lease. A lot of residential leases make special provision for the fact that the owner-landlord is entitled to display To Let or For Sale signs at the premises and obliges the tenant to allow the property to be inspected/accessed for the purposes of letting or sale. My view is that in the absence of such a provision in the lease, then the tenant would be entitled to refuse agents or potential tenants-purchasers access.

2. No, an agent may not force the tenant to leave. The tenant has a right to occupy the premises until the expiry of the lease.

3. The third problem isn’t yours. Even though you introduced your cousin, the builder, to the owner, they in fact contracted between the two of them. The only redress your cousin has is to institute an action for recovery against the owner. The owner has no right to withhold payment pending recovery from the previous contractor, and she is clearly liable to effect payment to your cousin, the builder, in terms of their contract. It seems in this regard that your problems in relation to occupation have been dealt with effectively by your cousin, the builder, performing his obligations in terms of the contract with the owner.

Property involves us all. What’s your view? Email letters@thepropertymag.co.za