Deposits, evictions under the PIE Act, transfer costs, body corporate and lease disputes.
Two sentences settle most of what people come to this page for. A landlord may never evict you without a court order, whatever the lease says. And a deposit is your money held in trust, not the landlord's money to keep. Everything below builds on those two points, whether you are renting, letting, buying or arguing with a body corporate.
Property and tenancy law covers the relationship between a landlord and a tenant, the sale and transfer of immovable property, and life in a sectional title scheme. The Rental Housing Act 50 of 1999 governs residential leases, deposits and the Rental Housing Tribunal. The Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act 19 of 1998, known as the PIE Act, governs eviction of anyone occupying a home. The Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 applies to many leases and affects cancellation and penalties. The Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act 8 of 2011 and the Community Schemes Ombud Service Act 9 of 2011 govern bodies corporate, levies and scheme disputes. The Alienation of Land Act 68 of 1981 requires that a sale of land be in writing and signed.
The situations people arrive with are the same ones every year. You moved out and the deposit has not come back, or came back short with no explanation. The landlord has changed the locks or cut the power. Rent went up in the middle of a lease. Something broke and nobody will fix it. The landlord walks in without warning. You need to leave a fixed term lease early and are being told you owe the whole balance. You are a landlord with a tenant who has not paid for months. You are buying a house and cannot work out what the extra costs are. Or your levies jumped and the body corporate will not explain why.
If your landlord is keeping your deposit, start with how long does a landlord have to return my deposit, then read can my landlord keep my deposit for fair wear and tear. Wear and tear is not damage, and the difference is where most deposit disputes are won.
If you are being told to leave, read can a landlord evict me without a court order and then how does the PIE Act protect tenants. Locks changed, belongings removed, or utilities cut to force you out are not eviction. They are unlawful.
If your electricity or water has been cut off, read can a landlord cut off my electricity. The Rental Housing Tribunal deals with this quickly and free.
If the landlord lets themselves in, read can a landlord enter my home without permission.
If the rent went up mid lease, read can my landlord increase rent mid lease.
If something needs fixing and nobody will fix it, read who pays for repairs in a rental property. Do not simply stop paying rent, and do not deduct the cost without following the right steps.
If you need to end a lease early, read what happens if I break my lease early. A reasonable cancellation penalty is not the same as the full remaining rent.
If your lease is ending and you want to know the notice, read how much notice must a landlord give to end a lease.
If you are the landlord and the tenant is not paying, read how to evict a tenant who is not paying rent. Doing it properly is slower than doing it wrongly, and doing it wrongly can cost you far more.
If your levies or the trustees are the problem, read how to dispute body corporate levies. The Community Schemes Ombud Service exists for exactly this.
If you are buying, read what are transfer costs when buying a house and how long does a property transfer take.
If a sale is falling apart, read what happens if the seller pulls out of a property sale.
The deposit refund clock. How long a landlord has to refund depends on the inspections. Where there is an outgoing inspection and no deductions, the period is short. Where deductions are claimed, it is longer, and where no inspection happened at all, different rules apply. The deposit refund calculator works out which period applies to you and what interest is owed on top.
The outgoing inspection. This is the deadline people miss without noticing. An inspection should happen with you present in the days before you hand back the keys. If you leave without one, you lose your best evidence about the condition of the property, and a landlord who fails to inspect weakens their right to deduct.
Cancelling a fixed term lease. Cancellation under the Consumer Protection Act requires written notice and takes effect after the notice period set out in that Act. The date it takes effect drives what you owe. Use the fixed term contract cancellation calculator.
Eviction notice periods. In a PIE Act eviction the court directs how and when notice must be given to the occupier and to the municipality before the hearing. Getting this wrong as a landlord means starting again.
Suspensive conditions in a sale. An offer to purchase usually gives a fixed number of days to obtain bond approval. If the date passes without an extension in writing, the agreement can lapse.
Prescription. A claim for a deposit, arrear rent or damages is a debt like any other. Most prescribe three years from when the claim arose. Do not sit on a deposit dispute for years.
The detail is on what does property and tenancy cost. The free routes here are strong for tenants and landlords alike.
The Rental Housing Tribunal in your province is free. It handles deposits, unlawful lock outs, utility disconnections, unfair rent increases, maintenance and entry without permission. Its rulings are binding and are enforced like a court order. It is the single most underused institution in South African housing. The Community Schemes Ombud Service handles sectional title and homeowners association disputes, including levies, conduct rules and trustee decisions, at a nominal cost. The Small Claims Court has no fee, allows no attorneys, and suits smaller deposit and damage claims. Legal Aid South Africa applies a means test and takes some eviction matters, and an occupier facing eviction should always ask about it.
What you pay for is a court eviction, a defended damages claim, and the conveyancing attorney on a transfer, whose fee follows a recommended tariff that changes over time.
Not doing the incoming and outgoing inspections. This is the biggest single cause of lost deposits, on both sides. Photograph everything, get it signed, keep a copy.
Withholding rent to force a repair. It converts your complaint into their case. You become the tenant in arrears, and arrears are grounds for eviction. Take it to the Rental Housing Tribunal instead.
Using the deposit as the last month's rent. The deposit is security. Using it yourself puts you in breach and leaves nothing to cover legitimate deductions.
Evicting without a court order. Changing locks, removing doors, cutting utilities or removing belongings exposes a landlord to an urgent application, a costs order, and having the tenant restored to the property.
Ignoring the notice of motion. An occupier who does not oppose an eviction application, or who does not tell the court about children, elderly people or disability in the household, loses the chance to have those circumstances weighed.
Signing an offer to purchase without reading the suspensive conditions. A sale of land must be in writing and signed, and what is written is what binds you. Verbal assurances from an agent are worth nothing.
Budgeting only for the deposit and the bond. Transfer duty, attorney fees and bond registration costs are due before you get the keys and cannot be added to the loan.
Get one if you are facing eviction and the application has been served, because the court must consider your personal circumstances and someone needs to put them before it. Get one if you are a landlord needing to evict, since a defective application wastes months and can be dismissed. Get one where the occupier has been in the property for a long period, or where children, elderly or disabled people live there, because the court's inquiry is wider and the process is more demanding. Get one when a property sale collapses and a deposit or commission of real value is in dispute. Get one when a builder, seller or agent has caused loss running into serious money. Get one when a body corporate dispute has moved past the ombud, or involves an interdict. And get one before you sign any acknowledgement of debt for arrear rent or levies.
For deposits, lock outs, utilities, entry, rent increases and maintenance, go to the Rental Housing Tribunal first. LawMatch is not a law firm. This page is general information about South African law, not legal advice about your situation.
No transfer registers without one, the municipality will not issue it until the seller has paid what is owed for the last two years plus several months in advance, and the Constitutional Court has settled that a buyer cannot be pursued for older debt. It is also the single commonest cause of a delayed transfer.
8 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
Occupation and ownership are different dates, and whoever is in the property between them pays occupational rent. It looks like a small clause in the offer to purchase, and it is where buyers lose money and sellers lose control of their own house.
7 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
Nobody has breached anything. A bond clause is a suspensive condition, so if finance is not obtained by the date in the clause the agreement simply falls away and the deposit comes back. What goes wrong is the extensions nobody put in writing.
8 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
Since the Property Practitioners Act there is a mandatory disclosure form, and the consequence of leaving it out is worse than most sellers realise: the agreement is read as though no defects were disclosed at all.
7 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
Almost every fight inside a sectional title scheme or an estate can be taken to the Community Schemes Ombud Service for a nominal fee, decided by an adjudicator, and enforced like a court order. Most owners have never heard of it and go to attorneys instead.
8 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
Every province has a tribunal that hears disputes between landlords and tenants. It costs nothing, you do not need an attorney, and its ruling is deemed an order of the Magistrates' Court, which means it can be enforced like any judgment.
7 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
A sale does not end a lease. The buyer steps into the seller's shoes and must honour it for the remaining term, under the rule that hire goes before purchase. The exception is long leases, where registration decides what survives past ten years.
7 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
A suspensive condition holds the whole agreement in suspense until something happens, usually a bond approval. If it is not met by the date, the agreement lapses. Nobody has breached anything, and that distinction decides who owes what.
8 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
Voetstoots means the buyer takes the property as it stands, defects and all. It still works in an ordinary private sale, but it protects nobody who knew about a defect and hid it, and it does not apply at all where the seller sells in the ordinary course of business.
8 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
You cannot remove a non-paying tenant yourself. The lawful route is a written breach notice, cancellation of the lease if the arrears are not paid, a court application under the PIE Act with notice to the tenant and the municipality, a hearing, and the sheriff carrying out the order.
9 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
Once a sale of land is in writing and signed by both parties, and any suspensive conditions such as bond approval have been met, the seller cannot simply walk away. The buyer can sue for specific performance, which forces the transfer, or for damages. If a condition has not been met, the sale falls away and neither side is bound.
9 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
No, except in a genuine emergency. A tenant has a right to privacy in the rented home, and a landlord who wants to inspect, repair or show the property must give reasonable notice and come at a reasonable time. The lease should set out how inspections work, and owning the property does not give the landlord a key to walk in.
8 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
No. Fair wear and tear is the ordinary deterioration that comes from living in a home, and a landlord may not deduct it from your deposit. Only damage beyond that, recorded in the joint inspections and backed by receipts, can be deducted, and the balance must come back with interest.
9 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
It depends on the kind of lease. A month-to-month lease usually needs one calendar month's written notice unless the lease says otherwise. A fixed-term lease ends on its date, but under the Consumer Protection Act the landlord must warn a consumer tenant before expiry, and if nothing is said it rolls on month to month. Notice is not eviction: if you do not leave, the landlord still needs a court order.
9 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
No. In South Africa a landlord may never evict you without a court order. Changing the locks, removing doors or cutting off water and electricity to force you out is unlawful, even if you are behind on rent.
9 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
It depends on whether a joint outgoing inspection was done and whether there is damage to deduct. Where there is no damage the deposit plus interest is usually due within seven days of the lease ending, and within 21 days if no inspection took place.
8 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
Transfer costs are what you pay on top of the purchase price to get the property registered in your name. The main items are transfer duty to SARS, the conveyancer fee, Deeds Office fees and, if you are financing, the bond registration costs.
8 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
The PIE Act stops anyone being removed from their home without a court order, and forces the court to ask whether the eviction is just and equitable before granting it. It gives you notice, a chance to be heard, and often extra time to move.
9 min read · Updated 24 Oct 2026
We use essential cookies to run the site. Ads on LawMatch are served by Google, which uses cookies to show and measure them. Choose "Allow all" to let Google personalise ads and to allow analytics cookies, or "Essential only" for non-personalised ads and no analytics. Privacy policy
