EDITED BY THE EDITORIAL TEAM :: PHOTOS: SUPPLIED
Some residents of sectional title complexes have found themselves in the dark, not due to load-shedding, but because their electricity was cut off for failing to pay their levies and electricity charges.
It is not wise to stop paying your body corporate account, says specialist sectional title attorney and BBM Law director Marina Constas. According to her the courts show little sympathy towards sectional title property owners who accumulate significant arrear levies and electricity charges.
Constas’s team at BBM Attorneys has successfully represented several bodies corporate and managing agents in recent cases where they sought to disconnect the electricity supply to sectional title units due to unpaid arrear levies, including electricity charges.
Your electricity can be cut off
The message from the courts is clear: trustees and managing agents do have the power to disconnect electricity with a High Court order when a sectional title owner consistently fails to pay arrear levies – including electricity charges.
“Court action is a tough step for the trustees to take, but in the current challenging financial times, bodies corporate are struggling and cannot carry the substantial debts that are being racked up by non-payment of levies,” Constas says.
“In the cases that my firm has been involved in, there have been significant amounts of money at stake. In one of the recent matters, the owner owed the body corporate just over R100,000, but orders were granted for much smaller amounts too. If a body corporate does not recover payments, it will be forced to advance money to the Council on behalf of section owners who do not pay for electricity consumption. This is an untenable situation, and trustees have a fiduciary duty to ensure they collect the arrear charges,” she says.
Marina Constas
Ombud’s directive doesn’t protect everyone
The Community Schemes Ombud Service (CSOS) has held that trustees in apartment buildings and complexes cannot legally terminate or reduce electricity services due to owner arrears in levies. “Owners with arrear levies may have believed they were protected by this CSOS directive, but there are additional considerations. If an owner has accumulated substantial arrear levies, including electricity payments, the trustees can certainly seek a High Court order to disconnect the power.”
She says that in a recent case involving arrear levies and electricity charges of more than R300,000 owed by an owner in a Killarney complex in Gauteng, the owner attempted to challenge the High Court disconnection order. “This attempt also failed, and a costs order was obtained against him.”
Go to court
Constas recommends that bodies corporate take the matter to court when the arrear levies and electricity charges exceed R20,000. “If the property is occupied, I believe that a court order to disconnect the electricity is the best way to recover what is owed by the defaulting owner. Once the High Court has issued the order, the Sheriff will go and disconnect the power to the unit. It’s important to note that disconnection applications do not relate to schemes with pre-paid meters.”
She says that BBM Law charges a fixed fee to bodies corporate for a High Court application to cut off a unit’s electricity. “This cost can be added to the owner’s levy account once it has been taxed and recovered by the body corporate,” she explains. If the owner still fails to make payment, the trustees can immediately proceed with a warrant of execution and, ultimately, an application to attach and sell the unit.”
