Upmarket coastal estates of Zimbali in Durban and Ballito’s Simbithi Eco-Estate have emerged among the estates with the most complaints lodged with the community schemes ombudsman.
Complaints range from payment disputes to conflicts over traditional and religious activities and renting out properties to rowdy revellers.
This is according to acting chief ombudsman at Community Schemes Ombud Services (CSOS), Lesiba Seshoka, who recently told Sunday Times about their work.
Seshoka said intercultural living presents challenges that end up as lifestyle complaints that require resolving.
Some of the issues they have had to adjudicate include complaints from a neighbour about marijuana smells coming from next door to dogs barking non-stop.
The majority of the complaints CSOS receives come from the exclusive upmarket estates.
“Lower-end estates manage their issues better [compared to upmarket estates].. If you look at Zimbali, Simbithi, they are all coming here … we have to deal with a lot of issues from Zimbali,” Seshoka said.
Some of the complaints seem bizarre, such as a neighbour partaking in sex work from their complex with clients arriving at any time and allegedly disturbing their peace, Seshoka said.
“We are really dealing with complex issues in complexes,” Seshoka said.
He said bigger complexes or estates were more demanding to run and manage, with lots of disputes happening regularly.
“Zimbali is massive, so there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to run the finances. You need to appoint people to run the finances and lawyers to litigate if necessary,” he said.
Most of the complaints involve residents who own homes in estates being unable to pay levies due to financial problems.
“It’s mainly issues of levies, then about behavioural issues, like cats, dogs, access to the laundromat, the parking lots and all those things,” Seshoka said.
CSOS doesn’t just look into regulating the schemes, it’s also required by law to register all schemes in the country.
Seshoka said they were providing training to the schemes and ensuring their rules were inclusive.
Kagiso Mutlaneng, a homeowner at Everglades, an upmarket estate in Hartbeespoort, has been at loggerheads with the homeowners association over access restrictions and sought help from CSOS.
He said adjudication wheels at CSOS turned slowly, from his experience.
“Not only has it been time-consuming as it can take over a year to get an adjudication, but in that time-frame, the same HOA can violate the same infringement over and over again,” Mutlaneng said.
Mutlaneng said homeowners’ associations “knew orders would have to go to high court anyway to be enforced, and CSOS will do nothing about it”.
Seshoka said there were capacity problems when he started leading CSOS in October, and the body was addressing the backlogs and delays.
He said post Covid, many schemes had problems, which led to more complaints being lodged with CSOS and this created backlogs.
“We then had to deal with a massive number ... But I think in the last couple of months, we have reduced that backlog to almost nothing,” Seshoka said.
Seshoka said when he became chief ombud at CSOS six months ago, he decided to capacitate the entity.
“There are a few things that I did ... We have increased the number of adjudicators to over 70 [from 40]” he said.
Seshoka believes they are now on the right track.
“I think we are succeeding.... The issue of disputes in the past year was a massive problem. If you went online, you would see that a lot of people were complaining about the backlog,” he said.
Seshoka said once a matter goes to court, CSOS ceases to have any jurisdiction, and many people were realising that going the legal route was costly.
He said in court there would be a winner and a loser, while with their process both parties could emerge happy if they agreed to a conciliation process.
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