A new valuation roll has recently been compiled by Mod Hope Properties, a company based in Polokwane, on behalf of the GLM. Residents say their properties rose by 45%. “I am not sure how the company went about the valuations,” said Chantèl Du Toit, a resident. “In one street in Panorama, the rate per m² differs between R500 to R2500. The municipality says we can lodge objections, but the objection document has some of the blank spaces which need the municipality to fil.” She says she made enquiries into how the valuations were determined, but the responsible official was not available.
“We as residents want to know if they took into consideration that we almost never have water and have non-stop electricity problems. We want the municipality to answer our questions,” she said. Jeremiah Mogashwa, a consultant at Mod Hope Properties, told the Herald that residents can lodge complaints to the municipality if they are not satisfied with the outcome of the valuations. “The purpose of a property valuation is to determine fair buying and selling prices of property and to ensure financing is on par with the value.”
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Mogashwa said there are three methods to do valuations. According to him, the sales comparison approach compares values from similar properties to determine value. The cost approach estimates the cost to build property and compares it to the cost of an existing property, and the income capitalisation approach estimates the value based on the expected future income from a property. “Residents must take that into account and not only complain because they do not want to pay higher rates,” he said.
He added that normally objections should be done within 30 days, but the municipality can extend it to two months. “When it comes to objects, you can only object on your own property, not in a group,” he said. Kholo Modiba, director of Mod Hope Properties and a registered property valuer said he understands the frustrations of residents. “When we did the valuations, we realised that there are a lot of problems. Previous complaints lodged against valuations had not been attended to and residents’ frustrations derive from that.” He said that frustrations are often linked to the lack of service delivery from municipalities.
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“They do not understand why they have to pay more while service delivery is lacking.” He said that he wanted to organise a public participation meeting before they started with the valuations to introduce themselves, but the municipality said they were too busy. “From our side, everything was done above board, that is why I wanted residents to know who we were and be able to ask us whatever questions they had. He said once the valuations have been advertised, residents can lodge complaints with a motivation of the complaint. Herald contacted GLM spokesperson, Lovers Maenetja, for comment. At the time of going to print, no response was received.
