School gets evicted over unpaid rent, accuses landlord of racism

Rising tensions between a landlord and a private Johannesburg college boiled over in court this week, when the former tried to kick the latter out over unpaid rent.

The relationship between Vine Christian College and Brandon Zackey, of Zackey Investment Properties, turned sour in September last year when the independently run school started falling behind on its rent.  But the feud reached new heights this year, when Zackey welded the gates shut and cut the power.

In May, ahead of the phased reopening of schools following the Covid-19-induced forced closure in March, principal Thembisa Baleni secured an urgent court order directing Zackey to unweld the gates and reinstate the utilities.

In those papers, she accused him of having called black parents and visitors “monkeys” and “baboons” – which he denies – and said she had opened a case of crimen injuria against Zackey.

Baleni also said Zackey had been “constantly switching off our electricity, which hindered the smooth running of the school, in the sense that our [pupils] could not access the internet for research, photocopying machines could not be operated and computer classes had to be abandoned”.

On Tuesday, they were back in court, this time to argue Zackey’s application to evict Vine Christian College. The case was placed on the High Court in Johannesburg’s unopposed roll and came before Judge Thina Siwendu, but it was removed for re-enrolling as an opposed matter after Werner Janse van Rensburg of MG Law, for the school, told the court his clients intended to fight the application.

In his papers, Zackey said his lawyers in January wrote to Vine Christian College, advising that it was in R97 300 arrears and demanding full payment within seven days.

Three days later, the school – through its own attorneys – replied that a payment of R15 000 had been made and “shall continue until the full amount due to your client is paid”.

Dissatisfied, Zackey’s lawyers advised that the school was still in arrears and its lease would, as a result, be terminated.

In Baleni’s answering affidavit, she disputed the amount and said this was, in fact, R70 000. She also pointed to a series of EFT and cash payments that had been made either to Zackey or a representative of his, identified only as “Steve”, over the course of six month.

These, she said, totalled R85 000.

“Most of the cash payments were made under duress when [Zackey] and Steve would simply interrupt classes and stand at the classroom door shouting that ‘there is no school if I do not get payment’.

“We had to give Steve, on numerous occasions, cash for him to leave the premises,” she said.

“[Zackey] is dishonest by not declaring all the payments received and thereby attempts to mislead the court to believe that a larger amount is due than what really was.”

A new date for the case to be heard has not yet been decided on.

Asked for his comment, Zackey told The Citizen that at the end of the day “if you don’t pay your rent, you get evicted”.

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