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Mortgage approvals stabilise after NCA teething period
RodneyHayter.com - South Africa
Banks are relaxing lending criteria and the increase of 30 year loans is making homes more ffordable.

The implementation of the National Credit Act in June this year caused a slowdown in mortgage approvals as banks and applicants adjusted to the new regulations - but now South Africa's leading originator reports that approvals are returning to pre-NCA levels.

"Approval turn-around times are tending back to pre-NCA levels while the rate of declines in mortgages has been marginal since the new regulations came in," says Kay Geldenhuys, Property Finance Processing Manager at MortgageSA.

"These declines have occurred predominantly around clients who are already over-extended in debt," says Geldenhuys.
RodneyHayter.com

Pay-back time against nasty neighbours
Realestateweb.co.za - South Africa
Annoyed with your neighbour's renovations and building extensions? Then you can get them demolished - new court ruling.

A very important decision was taken by the South Eastern Cape Local Division Courts when they enforced their ability to have an owner demolish his buildings because the correct provisions are not in the title deed.

The case was reported as Van Rensburg and Another v Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality and Others - 2007 4 All SA 950 (SE).

In summary: residential neighbours were embroiled in a dispute about buildings on urban property. The applicants sought an order for the demolition of the offending buildings on the property and an interdict to prevent nuisance emanating from the property.
Realestateweb.co.za

Electronic system closer
The Australian - Australia
THE states are about to establish a high-powered committee of government officials aimed at streamlining work towards a seamless national system of electronic conveyancing.

The committee, made up of the heads of government departments, is the centrepiece of an agreement between the states on the way forward for electronic conveyancing.
The governments of NSW, Victoria and South Australia have endorsed a draft statement outlining principles that will govern the development of "a seamless national electronic conveyancing system".

Other states are considering endorsing the statement of principles.

The draft statement is intended to send a clear signal to lawyers, banks and non-lawyer conveyancers that the states have united to develop a system that meets the needs of the private sector and government agencies. Private sector users of conveyancing will not be part of the new committee but will be consulted.
The Australian

Land inequality in SA a 'ticking time bomb'
Mail&Guardian.co.za - South Africa
For more than a decade, Molefi Selibo has been sent from pillar to post by the South African authorities in a futile quest to own a plot of land for his family.

"Land to us, it is a very key issue. There is a hunger for land in South Africa," says Selibo as he looks out across the rolling green hills of Muldersdrift which he still one day hopes to transform into a thriving village.

"It is very, very, very frustrating. It is more than 10 years. People become disillusioned, they start questioning whether this thing is progressing," says Selibo, eyeing the land which lies fallow.

His frustration is indicative of a wider sense of disillusionment about the pace of land reforms in post-apartheid South Africa.
Mail&Guardian

Dark days for landlords
NetAssets.co.za - South Africa
Government proposes changing a key property law that will ruin the delicate balance between landlords and tenants.

The Rental Housing Act was widely lauded as an enlightened law when it was promulgated in 1999. The Act recognised that private property owners would be the main suppliers of rented housing by giving them a reasonable return on their investment while protecting both them and tenants from unfair treatment.

But recently the Department of Housing has proposed some amendments to the act which changes this balance by criminalising the cutting off of tenants' electricity or locking them out, but not criminalising the misbehaviour of tenants, such as withholding rent or refusing to vacate a property when their lease ends.
NetAssets.co.za

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