The City of Cape Town stands to earn millions of rands in additional revenue from thousands of homeowners who face skyrocketing rates increases following property valuations that have seen some Cape Town homes increase in value by more than 100 percent.
Only 15 000 homeowners have lodged objections - and there's less than a week left to do so.
Rates will go up by about 8 percent on July 1 - but the effect on homeowners' pockets will be generally higher as payments will be based on the new, higher valuations. The exercise will increase by R320m the R4 billion a year the city already collects.
Evaluators and estate agents have been inundated with requests for help in the aftermath of the recent municipal assessments.
The city says valuations are market-related and influenced by improvements to property, land-status changes and valuations that were originally too low.
Gardens pensioner Amadeu Seca, who has lived in his home since 1969, said the city claimed his house had gone up in value by nearly R7m, a "preposterous" increase of 460 percent since the last valuation - from R1.88m to R8.7m.
He said the looming increase in rates would be "killing", considering that most services, including electricity, were becoming increasingly expensive.
The Breuer family in Oranjezicht, who have lived in their house for over 25 years, have seen their property valuation rocket by R5.4m since the last evaluation three years ago, when it was valued at R3.8m, a 136 percent increase.
Yet they had not improved their house, said Edeltraud Breuer. The house next door, which was bigger and had been modernised, was valued at R6m. "This is very frustrating. If our house was really worth R9.2m we would sell it tomorrow. This whole process is costing us more money. Valuators cost money. We can't pay these higher rates."
Tamboerskloof resident Koebi Ribeli described the process as "one big circus".
She wanted to know how the city's formula worked. She owns two identical properties in the same street in Tamboerskloof.
Three years ago they were both valued at R3.1m, but now the value of the first one had gone up to R3.5m while the second was valued at R4.44m.
The value of a neighbour's property had increased by 44 percent.
"It's an absolute disgrace. I hope enough people get together so we can instigate a class action against the city."
Ribeli said municipal officials could not argue that these were market-related prices in relation to 2007 values as the earlier valuation was conducted when the property market was booming, while prices had dropped markedly since then.
Ribeli said she had objected the last time but the process was too frustrating, and she had given-up.
Neighbours selling their homes had been forced to accept considerably less than their municipal valuations.
The city says only 15 000 objections have been lodged. "It shows that our systems have improved since the last general valuation," said Christopher Gavor, director of the city's valuations office.
Gavor said the city received over 40 000 objections after the previous general evaluation.
- Cape Argus
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