Even when they have a written lease, tenants are often uncertain about what their monthly rent actually includes, especially if they are renting a flat or townhouse in a sectional title complex.
And they need to make sure before they sign a lease, said Gerhard Kotzé, MD of the RealNet estate agency group, or they could find themselves having to pay for things that were not in their budget.
“But in such cases the lease should stipulate exactly what is expected of the tenant and the value of the rent concession,” said Kotzé. Kotzé said that levy increases have been well ahead of the rate of inflation in many complexes recently, often due to the need for the body corporate to build up a bigger reserve fund in line with legislation that is now being more strictly implemented by the Community Housing Schemes Ombud.
“These days, most sectional title units do have a separate municipal electricity meter or a pre-paid meter that means tenants will only pay for their own usage. But many schemes do not have separate water meters for each unit, which means that the local authority sends the body corporate a bulk account that is then divided among the residents according to the PQs of their units.
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