It took less than three minutes for Defence and Military Veterans Minister Lindiwe Sisulu and her husband, Rok Ajulu, to lose a Joburg mansion they bought as an investment six years ago.
As punters drank coffee, ate brownies and smoked, the unfinished Riverclub, Sandton, house was sold at a public auction for R2.2 million to a buyer who plans to complete it and let it.
Earlier this month, The Mercury reported that Sisulu and her husband, a Unisa professor and businessman, had not paid their bond instalments and owed more than R160 000 in levies for the property.
This debt resulted in the bank, builder and apparently their homeowners association launching separate legal bids to recover their share of the mounting arrears by repossessing the incomplete house.
At an auction held in Midrand on Tuesday the house was introduced shortly after midday. Despite being unfinished, with unpaid levies and penalty fees, the house had a reserve price of R2.21m. In the end, the buyer bid R2.205m. After tax, the total cost was just short of R2.230m.
The buyer said his brother had seen the house and instructed him, shortly before the auction, to bid for it.
Ajulu had said a dispute with the builder was the reason the project had ground to a halt.
He had vowed to fight to stop the auction because, he said, he believed the house was worth more than R3m.
Sisulu, a former housing minister, and Ajulu had borrowed R1.975m from Standard Bank to buy the house in 2004. Sisulu maintains the project was her husband's and her involvement was only because they were married in community of property.
However, as a half-owner Sisulu stood to gain or lose from the investment and was legally bound to the property.
It remains to be seen whether the repossession of the house will affect the couple's credit rating.
The house, located in a complex along Coleraine Drive, is one of two plush investment houses - the other is in Killarney, Joburg - that the couple own. A third, in Cape Town, was sold several years ago.
Deeds records reflect that Ajulu and Sisulu bought the land for about R600 000. - Mercury Correspondent