Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa February 2015 | Page 26

LEGAL

BY MARLON SHEVELEW

What are
the legalities
of evicting
your tenant?
Tenant evictions and legal contracts

E

victions of tenants in residential properties are
unfortunately a necessary evil for landlords.
Ironically, tenants are but one of the ‘group’
of unlawful occupiers that rental property attorneys
encounter in court and, relatively speaking, are far more
accommodating than squatters whom have occupied a
residential property without any right in law or in fact,
or a property owner who has lost ownership by way of
foreclosure but feels the need to remain in the property.
The Prevention Of Illegal Eviction and Unlawful
Occupation Of Land Act – No. 19 of 1998 (PIE)
regulates the residential eviction process. It is the only
lawful procedure of ejecting an unlawful occupier from
a residential property.
What landlords need to realise is that an eviction
application can only be launched if the tenant is an
unlawful occupier.
In other words, a tenant will have been obliged to
receive notice to remedy a breach; for example, a nonrental payment. Moreover, only 20 days after the date
of such demand had passed can a lease be cancelled.
A period to voluntarily vacate the premises can then
be provided. In the absence of the voluntary vacation
an eviction application procedure can be commenced.
Residential evictions are unaffected by the
imminent ammendment to the Rental Housing Act,

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February 2015 SA Real Estate Investor

save for potential weaponry that the tenant may raise
in opposition to the proposed eviction, such as a failure
by the landlord to attend to certain maintenance
requirements etc.
More of a concern, however, is the Consumer
Protection Act, a statute that will be covered in