Courts only way to resolve billing issues with CoJ, says property association

The City of Joburg (CoJ) is racking up huge legal costs by failing to address billing issues raised by residents timeously, before they reach the courts. It routinely opposes applications, which it then loses with costs – which are paid out of revenue squeezed out of ratepayers.

This is a vicious cycle that results in a further burden of unfair tariff increases that residents have no choice but to shoulder, according to the Johannesburg Property Owners and Managers Association (JPOMA).

JPOMA represents the interests of landlords of 150 000 inner-city households that jointly pay CoJ R80 million in rates and taxes per month, “yet we cannot rely on the services we pay for and have no choice but to eventually resort to costly legal interventions,” according to its general manager Angela Rivers.

The organisation has announced another court application challenging a unilateral CoJ decision to bill sewerage services provided to certain blocks of flats at the higher fixed rate specified for “multi-dwellings” and to backdate this to 2018.

This follows a similar application by JPOMA in relation to charges for refuse removal.

Educational rates debacle

This comes after the fiasco with rates charged to educational institutions in Johannesburg which saw mayor Dr Mpho Phalatse recently announce an intervention to reduce the impact of a recategorisation and thereby stop a six-fold increase in rates for public institutions and a 10-fold increase for independent institutions.

The CoJ did not respond favourably to requests by AfriForum for relief and the civil rights movement as well as listed education groups ADvTech and Curro proceeded with litigation.

The CoJ opposed their applications and the applicants indicated that they will now proceed, despite the public announcement of the mayor’s intervention to limit the increase to 5%.

Early last month, the South African Property Owners Association (Sapoa) also filed a high court application to interdict the CoJ from implementing its 2021 Development Contributions Policy (DCP), which would allow the city to use the extra fees it will charge developers to cross-subsidise services in other areas.

City ‘contradicting its own tariff policy’

Regarding the current application, Rivers says: “This policy of billing a fixed rate according to property type and size is completely unfair and contradicts CoJ’s own tariff policy, which stipulates that the amount individual users pay for services should generally be in proportion to their use of that service.

“Instead, the city even bills properties that are unoccupied and using no water or sewerage services whatsoever.”

According to Rivers, the tariff determination bylaw makes provision for three different sewerage rates structures for “flats”, “multi-dwellings” and “private dwellings [houses]”.

The “multi-dwelling” category is commonly accepted to pertain to complexes with separate townhouses, while flats are described in the city’s own bylaws as units within a single multi-storey building with a single common entrance.

The fixed rate for multi-dwellings is almost double that for flats, with a house being charged the same as a flat when on an erf up to 300m², and the same as a multi-dwelling when on an erf between 300m² and 1 000m².

“We now have a situation where the individual flats in a block that straddles two erven is charged at the same higher fixed rate that applies to a multi-dwelling and a house on a 1 000m² erf,” says Rivers.

‘Opportunistic’

“We believe this is nothing more than an opportunistic attempt by the city to fill its coffers by targeting those ratepayers who historically do pay for services.”

Rivers estimates that the current matters JPOMA has brought before court will run up legal bills of between R600 000 and R800 000 each.

“Each application that we or our members bring is opposed by the city and repeatedly delayed, running up legal costs that the taxpayer ultimately has to pay,” she says.

“It is a vicious cycle of responsible ratepayers being slapped with illegal claims amounting to millions [and] the city refusing all reasonable attempts to resolve disputes, leading eventually to costly legal actions and an unconscionable waste of taxpayers’ money when we win the case and the city has to settle with costs.”

She says JPOMA members participate in the rates-determination process every year, “but the issues raised are ignored, the back-billing continues, and eventually we have no choice but to head for the courts again”.

JPOMA is calling for sewerage charges to be based on water consumption as stipulated by the water bylaw.

The CoJ did not respond to a request for comment.