Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa March 2015 | Page 40

LEGAL

The
Rental
Housing
Bill
How this will affect both
landlords and tenants.
BY MARLON SHEVELEW

L

andlords can only assume that the Rental
Housing Amendment Bill, which was prepared
to formally amend the current Rental Housing
Act, is intended to cure the current idiosyncrasies of
the 1999 Act. There has of course been a subsequent
amendment to this Act in 2007, but the latest Bill goes
further and regretfully, and potentially, has the converse
effect for both landlords and tenants.
A few concerns that we can see, especially as a
law firm specialising in rental property law litigation
include, but are not limited to the following:
The insertion in the definition section of the word
‘habitability’ which also includes very loose and
undefined terms such as ‘adequate space’, ‘protection

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March 2015 SA Real Estate Investor

from the elements and other threats to health’, ‘physical
safety….’ and ‘structurally sound building….’. Insofar
as the Rental Housing Act (RHA) applies equally to
a house or a shack, landlords must wonder how this is
to be interpreted by the court in the event of a tenant
raising an issue as to the premises provided by the
landlord.
The issue of a written lease is in itself curious. Insofar
as this appears to be a prerequisite to concretise the
lease terms between landlord and tenant and inasmuch
as there is a directive on the Minister to prepare a
pro-forma lease in all 11 official languages, one must
consider the illogicality of that when the Rental
Housing Act, not to mention the Consumer Protection
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