Tenants facing rental anguish

Only 37% of tenants can afford full payments during lockdown

Despite stringent lockdown regulations prohibiting evictions from properties, some East London residents have found themselves coughing up money they do not have or being forced to move out.

A survey done by Flow, a residential rental prop-tech platform, surveyed 80,000 South African tenants about their relocation plans, landlord behaviour and payment assistance during the pandemic.

They found only 37% of tenants could afford to pay their rent in full while 22% could not pay at all.

“Both the high-end rentals of R12,000-plus a month and lowend rentals of R2,000 to R3,999 a month of the market are affected,” Flow co-founder and CEO Gil Sperling said.

East London musician Siseko Pame has had issues paying rent. “I barely managed to scrape together funds to pay for March, April and May. I have been threatened with eviction but I did my research which indicates that evictions aren’t allowed under lockdown regulations,” Pame said.

In the Flow survey result, Trafalgar Property Management MD Andrew Schaefer said: “How do landlords plan ahead when tenants aren’t able to make payments if their income has been affected? They won’t be able to catch up with their arrears any time soon, so we need to consider how this all clears through the system.

“We believe that rental credits are the only way forward,” Schaefer said.

Adriaan de Meyer, a 37-yearold man in Ducats North, said existing problems with his landlord were exacerbated by the lockdown.

He lost his job in November 2019 and had arranged for a payment plan with his landlord, which was working until the lockdown started.

“I couldn’t pay rent in November but paid it as soon as I could. I paid in December, January and February. The problems started in March when the landlord threatened to switch off water and electricity,” he said.

The father said food was scarce for his family. The landlord, Smits Klein, had issued a termination of lease notification letter. In the letter, seen by the Dispatch, the landlord gives the family three options:

● Pay at least half of arrears if the lease is to be renewed from June 1;

● Face legal action to recover outstanding rental and eviction as soon as permitted, with all legal costs for the tenant’s account; or

● Vacate premises by May 31 with no return of deposit but no legal action to recover any outstanding rental and utilities.

“There’s been a lack of maintenance on the property. From November I’ve had to hire a bakkie to fill up my own water tank, which the landlord is supposed to provide — not once has he done this,” he said.

Klein said he was not evicting anyone and was well aware that regulations did not allow for evictions at this time.

“This guy owes me rental money from before Covid-19 of about R15,000. He seemed to want to leave even before all this. I gave him the option to leave at the end of the month without paying the outstanding rental and then I won’t take legal steps,” Klein said.