Watch out for property hijackers come Dezemba, warns COJ

The City of Johannesburg (COJ) has warned citizens to be vigilant of property hijackers as the festive season approaches.

Speaking to news channel eNCA on Tuesday, Lucky Sindane, spokesperson for the City’s Group Forensic and Investigation Services, said this was the peak period that syndicates targeted properties as most people were away.

“Remember, people come to Johannesburg to acquire assets then come December time, we go and visit our families. They will come, pose as the rightful owners. They have connections everywhere within the city, police officers etc.”

“They work with government officials. When they come to you they produce legit documents and fool tenants into thinking they are the rightful owners,” he said.

Sindane added that because this has been a problem for a while, it is one subject his administration really focused on when it took over in 2016.

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He said his department conducted an audit to ascertain how many properties had been hijacked, how many belong to the city and they traced those that belong private owners who are no longer in the City.

 “If you travel around the inner city of Johannesburg you’ll see a lot of abandoned buildings of which the owners cannot be traced. Some of them cannot be traced because you’d find, for instance the building is worth R3 million but owes rates and taxes of R6 million,” he said.

“So the owners would abandon those buildings because they see no value. In coming back and renovating those properties. So what we do as a City working with other departments, we trace the owners and try to release the buildings to be redeveloped,” said Sindane.

He further highlighted that property hijacking is not only an inner city issue but also happens in affluent suburbs and townships as well.

He also thanked citizens who have faith in heir department by coming forward to be assisted by the COJ after the police have failed them.

“We will win this war, it will take time but we will get there,” he said.