Johannesburg - First he had to fend off construction companies illegally dumping rubble on his property. Then over the weekend, Adrian Tills had to deal with people putting up shacks on his land after it was allegedly sold to them.
Tills owns 74 hectares of agricultural land on the outskirts of Diepsloot.
When he went to inspect his property on Saturday, he found a group of people who were allocating plots of his land among themselves and marking their sites.
“I asked them what was going on and they said someone in Diepsloot was selling the land and some of them had bought it,” Tills said.
He went to Diepsloot police station to report the matter. Police officers accompanied him to the site and explained to the people illegally occupying the land that it was privately owned and could not be sold off by someone else.
Tills said that when he returned to check on the property on Sunday morning, there were even more people - more than 100 - who were marking out plots, and some were erecting shacks.
“I went to the police again and told them that even more people were on the property and they were even building shacks,” Tills said.
He said more than 30 vehicles were dispatched to clear the land.
By mid-morning, some of the police trucks and vans continued to monitor the property.
Tills said he did not know who was selling his land and at what price.
“It’s an unfortunate situation; there’s a lot of desperate and gullible people,” he said.
Joburg metro police spokesman Wayne Minnaar said land, whether privately owned or belonging to the municipality, could not be occupied without being legally bought and/or without an agreement with the owner.
He confirmed that metro police officers and members of the SAPS removed trespassers from the property.
Minnaar added that the police were investigating the illegal sale of the land.
The Star