Cape Town - Complaints to the Western Cape Rental Housing Tribunal (WCRHT) increased by about 1000 during the 2018/19 financial year compared with those for the 2017/18 period.
The tribunal's deputy chairperson Sibongile Morara told the standing committee on human settlements: “We received 3630 complaints on the database during the year in review compared with the 2719 in the previous financial year.”
The committee was deliberating the tribunal's annual report.
Morara said the committee had a regional office in George which was used to host ad hoc hearings and that of the 3630 complaints, 69 were received from the Garden Route region.
“A total of 23 hearings were held in July, 2018. and February, 2019, at the George office.”
During debate in the legislature, EFF's Nosipho Makamba-Botya demanded to know why the number of complaints increased, what the top five complaints were and how the tribunal was dealing with them.
In response, Morara blamed “social issues” such as the unemployment increase in the last few years, saying this had led to people being unable to afford their rents. “We are seeing more and more complaints (such as) elderly people who can’t afford rentals,” said Morara.
Human Settlements Land and Asset management acting director Roy Stewart said: “Failure to refund deposit and unlawful notice to vacate were the predominant reasons with each taking up roughly 30 to 40%.”
He said the rest were exorbitant increases in rental, failure to provide municipal services and failure to pay rent.
The Department of Human Settlements’ help desk dealt with 4292 queries about the tribunal from the public in the year under review, compared with 3606 the previous year.
The standing committee was told that the enquiries included people who came to lodge official rent housing tribunal complaints, those who called for advice on their rights as either tenant or landlord and those who wanted to submit their official rental housing complaints.
The committee heard that the tribunal offered a free service aimed at resolving rental disputes between tenants and landlords.
Complaints lodged were resolved through facilitation or mediation or a formal hearing within the province.
The tribunal is assisted by support staff of the Department of Human Settlements and has a responsibility to create awareness and inform tenants, landlords and all other relevant stakeholders (including municipalities) and interest groups about their rights, duties and obligations and actions that constitute an unfair practice in terms of the Rental Housing Act.