Court lashes wine farmers for trying to ‘use’ farm workers to escape liability

The Western Cape High Court has slammed the owners of an award-winning winery for trying to “use” farm workers who live on the property as “an excuse” to avoid having it placed under the hammer.

Judge Deidre Kusevitsky recently granted Nedbank a default judgment for more than R8.5 million against Petrus Bestbier, whose family bought Goede Hoop farm about 90 years ago, as well as the farm’s trustees. She also gave the bank the green light to sell Goede Hoop at auction, declaring it “specially executable”.

Her ruling comes on the back of the nonpayment of an overdraft and various loans which the farm’s owners had initially secured by bonding the property. The parties early last year reached a settlement agreement, with the farm’s owners agreeing they would pay up and that if they didn’t, it could be sold at auction.

When by last September their debt was still outstanding and Nedbank turned to the court, though, they changed tack. In court, Bestbier and his wife argued they, along with 12 farm workers and their families, lived on the farm. But Kusevitsky made short shrift of this line.

She said the farm workers and their families were protected under the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from Unlawful Occupation of Land Act and that were the farm to be sold, their eviction would have to be in accordance therewith. She spoke about the right to adequate housing and said the courts had a role to play in protecting “the most vulnerable in our society” and ensuring they were not “left on the side of the road without shelter”.

But, she said, the Bestbiers were neither “indigent” nor “poor” and with the value of their farm at around R40 million, that they would likely still be left with enough money to buy a new home after it was auctioned off and their debt settled.

“To suggest that a person’s rights in terms of section 26 [of the constitution] will be infringed, because he or she will no longer be able to live on property valued at over R40 million is disingenuous,” she said.

“The use of the employees who reside on the farm as an excuse to escape liability is opportunistic.”

– bernadettew@citizen.co.za

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