Your Property Purchase Collapses: Can You Get Your Deposit Back?
“A creature with a big enough head to make a contract should have the sense to make one it can keep.” (Barbara Kingsolver) A R1.725 million deposit. A bank guarantee that never arrived. A property that ultimately sold for significantly less than the original price. What happens to the deposit money? A sale that fell […]
Dodgy Deck: When a Property Defect is Your Problem, Not the Seller’s
“The buyer needs a hundred eyes, the seller not one.” (George Herbert) A Marina Da Gama property. A collapsed wooden deck. A purchase price of R1.55 million and repair costs claimed of just over R100 000. The facts are not complicated. But the legal battle that followed lasted more than a decade. What happened The […]
Buying a House: What Costs Will You Pay, and When?
“It is a comfortable feeling to know that you stand on your own ground. Land is about the only thing that can’t fly away.” (English novelist Anthony Trollope) With interest and home loan rates at their lowest since 2022, it’s no surprise that South Africa’s property market confidence level at the end of 2025 was […]
Your New Car’s a Lemon: Here’s How to Make Lemonade and Get Your Money Back
“Lemon law, noun – a law that states that you can return a motor vehicle to get it repaired or your money back if the vehicle is no good.” (Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries) The car you just bought on instalment sale turns out to be a complete lemon. But when you return it to the dealership […]
Property Sales and Side Deals: Verbal Agreements Don’t Cut it!
“With a verbal agreement you have nothing but air.” (Author and entrepreneur Robert Ringer) 2026 opens with positive signals for our property market after last year’s encouraging GDP forecasts, a credit-rating upgrade, and a series of interest rate cuts boosting access to bond finance. All the signs point to a promising year for buyers, sellers, […]
Your new house leaks like a sieve – Can you sue the seller?
You move into your new dream home, excited and happy. Until it rains, and the roof leaks. As the repair teams tramp around on your roof and the bills start piling up whilst you weave around buckets and tarpaulins and sodden carpets, you go back to the seller and demand recompense. “Sorry”, says the seller, […]
Leaving anything important out of your property sale agreement will sink it
Ensure that all the important terms of your sale agreement are recorded in writing and signed. Leave out anything “material” and, as we shall see from the Supreme Court of Appeal case discussed below, your entire sale could well collapse. At the very least, you face significant legal consequences, delay and cost. The omitted term […]