Alleged conman in court over dodgy property deals
A CONVICTED fraudster with a history of buying houses, defaulting on the payment and then suing owners while he lived in their homes without paying rent was back in the Port Elizabeth High Court last week.
In his latest bout of litigation, St Michael Pierre Kotze is suing school teacher Jeanette Hayter, who sold him her R1.5-million home in Lorraine, and Scotsman John Deplacido, who sold him a R1-million house in Colchester, after buying their homes and then failing to make payment.
Kotze is suing the sellers, claiming he “lent” Hayter R500 000, and spent money on repairs on Deplacido’s house, before he was evicted.
However, his first round in court last week did not go as planned, after Judge Jeremy Pickering dismissed Kotze’s application for summary judgment against Hayter after Kotze claimed she had no defence to his legal action.
Kotze, who calls himself St Michael Pierre Kotze but is also known as Johannes Machiel Kotze, has left a string of soured property deals and litigation-weary property owners in his wake, dating back to 1990.
He has been convicted of several charges of theft, assault and contravening the Insolvency Act, and in 1990 was sentenced to three years in jail for fraud.
Last week the legal saga between Kotze and Deplacido resumed in the high court.
Kotze claims he paid R305 000 for Deplacido’s furniture before the transaction was cancelled and also spent nearly R700 000 doing repairs to the property.
According to papers before court, he also failed to pay occupational rent while he and his family were living at the property.
Deplacido said he was only ever paid R280 000 for the furniture.
He added that any repairs done at the property were without his permission and he should not be made to pay for this.
The case was postponed and a trial date will be set later.
Deplacido said in papers before court it was clear Kotze’s modus operandi was buying houses without having the necessary finance in place, staying in the house for as long as possible, making alterations to the property and then suing for damages.
Kotze’s dark track-record of property deals gone wrong is well documented in the country’s law reports, and he made headlines in Cape Town and Durban before moving to Port Elizabeth at the end of 2009.
Before that he was embroiled in an ugly legal battle with another Scotsman, retired airline engineer Dave Cater, over the sale of his buchu farm near Gordon’s Bay in the Western Cape.
Kotze bought the farm and Cater’s furniture, then failed to pay, and when faced with eviction, claimed he effected several repairs on the farm and wanted to stay to “protect” his “financial interests”.
The “repairs” included turning part of the farm into a rubbish dump for building rubble – a move that at one stage had the Green Scorpions involved in the case.
After the high court ordered Kotze’s eviction from the farm, he claimed his brother JP Kotze was living there.
According to papers before court, Cater had to ask his neighbours to get JP off the farm.
Next, Kotze bought chemist Ettienne Vermaak’s house for R2-million in Mtunzini, on the KwaZulu-Natal coast.
Kotze agreed to pay occupational rent, then made some repairs to the house. He was evicted from that house in December 2009.
Kotze said he was considering legal action against Vermaak, who owed him money from the property deal and who was so enraged by what happened that he distributed posters and e-mails with Kotze’s pictures to estate agents and attorneys in Port Elizabeth, warning them about him.
Kotze also claimed he cancelled the sale agreement because the house was structurally unsound.
He came to Port Elizabeth in December 2009, where he “bought” Jeanette Hayter’s house in Lorraine and then Deplacido’s property in Colchester.
After he was forced to leave this property he then “bought” the Ralston Road, Fernglen, house of another teacher, Denise Halbert, for R2-million.
He never paid the agreed amount and also failed to pay occupational rent, according to papers before court.