Estate agents who rely on commission are facing a major financial crisis because of the lengthy period it takes to get clearance certificates from the City of Johannesburg council to facilitate property sales.
Fred Steffers, managing director of Apex Property Brokers, says he and many of his fellow estate agents have suffered substantial losses because of their inability to conclude sales.
He says they have had instances where it has taken upwards of eight months to get a clearance certificate from the council, which means that the property cannot be transferred from the buyer to the seller in the Deeds Office.
“This is largely due to the incompetence of staff at the Braamfontein and other service centres where staff are inadequately trained and motivated to deal with queries.”
Steffer says after standing in lengthy queues for hours, hard-pressed consumers are given a reference number. Often the queries are incorrectly logged and absolutely nothing happens, he explains.
One of the largest conveyancing legal practices in South Africa, Dykes van Heerden, have gone as far as setting up a separate division to deal with the problem of clearance certificates to facilitate the timeous registration and transfer of property.
Garth Dykes of Dykes van Heerden Attorneys says service delivery had somewhat improved at the Braamfontein services centre but if any out-of-the-ordinary problems cropped up, such as faulty water or electricity meters, the process could still be lengthy.
“We’re taking a lot of heat from clients who want to take possession of their newly bought homes but are unable to do so because of delays in the transfer process caused by the Joburg council.”
A major problem faced by consumers is the fact that they do not have direct access to the decision makers who manage various parts of the system.
Dykes says these so-called back office staff are kept well hidden from the public. “They have to rely on the information that is supplied to them by client services staff and this is where many of the problems originate. The wrong information is passed along and the ‘ticket’ closed without the problem being resolved or delayed for lengthy periods of time.”
In contrast to the problems in Johannesburg, the Dykes Van Heerden offices in Cape Town were usually able to get clearance certificates from the Cape Town council within four to five days, says Dykes.
He says they accept the fact that Johannesburg is by far the largest city in South Africa and that it has to face problems associated with a vastly larger client base, but a little more effort to ensure that people are better trained and a greater degree of accountability would go a long way towards fixing the system.
via property24
