The right to adequate housing : making sense of eviction procedures in the context of rental housing after Ndlovu V Ngcobo

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: South Africa must address the need for adequate housing. Sincedemocracy in 1994, the government has promulgated a number of acts toachieve the goal of adequate housing for all. These include the Preventionof Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act (PIE) andthe Rental Housing Act (RHA). The problem for the courts is knowingwhen to apply each act.To reach the goal embodied in the constitutional right of adequatehousing for all, the government has invested R18 billion in housing since1994. Despite this, the need for housing has escalated. The RHA, inwhich the legislature tried to create a balance between the rights oflandlords and tenants, followed. This was done in order to alleviate someof the pressure to ensure access to land, which rests solely on theshoulders of the government. The legislature tried to create a sphere intowhich private investors would want to invest their money. A number ofrecent cases dealing with tenants who defaulted on their rentals and thelandlord's capacity to effect eviction raised awareness about the existinginadequacies of the law in this particular field. In a Supreme Court ofAppeal ruling, the court found that when a landlord wants to evict adefaulting tenant the time-consuming and costly procedure of PIE shouldbe used.The assumption underlying this study is that PIE should not be applicablein cases of evicting a defaulting tenant. The rights and duties of thevarious parties involved in rental housing therefore need to be examined.The main aim is, however, to ascertain which procedure should beemployed when obtaining an eviction order against a party holding overand what the effects are when the most appropriate eviction procedure isnot used. A well-regulated relationship would ensure the best balance ofinterest for the landlord, tenant and the government by creating a marketin which a landlord could make money out of letting and more tenantscould obtain adequate housing through renting. A further assumption isthat the rei vindicatio should be used when having a defaulting tenantevicted. It offers an alternative procedure that does not undermine theobjectives of the housing legislation.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University