Johannesburg - Elsie Nkosi is 64. She worked for years at Truworths and used her pension to buy a flat in Hermanna Court in Hillbrow, in 1996.
She would be living there still had it not been sold in execution to Patricia Noah four years after she bought it.
According to deeds searches and documents Nkosi was given by Nedbank, Noah bought the flat for R100.
Nkosi was a manager at Truworths and had been renting a flat in Hillbrow when she decided to try to buy her own property.
The flat she bought was a double unit with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, an enclosed balcony and a large kitchen. She was happy there.
Nkosi bought it for R75 000 with the help of her employer who took money off her salary every month to pay the bond.
Within two years of living there, Noah arrived.
“We were told she was coming to show us how to run the building. I said we didn’t need her, we had a body corporate. We fought about it,” Nkosi said.
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She was offered an early pension at her work and decided to take it and pay off her bond with the money.
Her estranged husband had died and Nkosi decided to move into his home in Alexandra and rent out the flat to support herself.
She said she owed some money on electricity.
“I kept on getting notes under the door harassing me to move out,” Nkosi said.
She was out when she got a call from her neighbour. All her things had been thrown in the street and her flat had been locked on Noah's orders.
“I went to the police, but they said they could not do anything. I didn’t know what to do. I had worked very hard for years. I had to go for counselling. I was crying. I could not understand why I could lose so much.”
A few years ago, Nkosi went to work as a domestic helper. She had to carry on working to survive, as she will have to in the years to come.
Her new boss called the bank for her and Nkosi was sent documentation which said she owed R2 876 for electricity. She paid it.
Then the bank sent her the papers to say the flat had been sold in execution in 2000 to Noah for R100.
The Star