Players in the property market have raised concerns about the closure of the deeds office in Pretoria, saying this will have a serious impact on the property sector and also cause backlogs in property registrations.
The deeds office issued a statement saying the office would close indefinitely and later retracted this saying the offices will close due to the moving of offices and will reopen on the 17th of this month.
The notice of the closure of the deeds office caused panic with many concerned that this will lead to delays in property registrations and negatively impact clients and business income.
There is also a concern that following the reopening, there will be a backlog of properties to register.
This will impact the incomes of mortgage originators, property agents, and conveyancers amongst others.
Conveyancing attorney Palesa Seema says the impact of the closure will lead to delays that will cause a lot of inconveniences for many.
She calls for contingency measures to be put in place to avoid backlogs.
“Let me start with the financial institutions, the banks, which are also big generators of income in this country, we are not going to be able to register the mortgages which are the loans that banks grants to people companies or businesses and if that revenue is not rolling, that is a big problem and then the general public.
The man on the street is affected, imagine a buyer who has bought a property with the intention to move out of that premises to go to another premise and give the purchaser occupation, this whole delay is going to disrupt that.”
The Department of Land Reform and Agriculture has apologised for the statement announcing the deeds office would close indefinitely, and now says the office will reopen on the 17th of April from new premises.
