Cape Town homeowners irate over property valuations

The City of Cape Town has appealed for calm during the new evaluation process, but Hout Bay resident Hans Hohlbein says that's impossible considering the nearly 90 percent increase in the valuation of his property.

And Lorraine Brown, who runs a guest house in Constantia owned by her son-in-law, is similarly angry after the value of that property escalated from R5.2 million in 2007 to R11.9m.

In Hohlbein's case, unlike the average 5 percent annual increase in the market value of residential properties in Hout Bay since 2007, the value of his home jumped to 87 percent from R2.35m in 2007 to R4.4m according to the city's calculations in the general valuation process for 2009, which has just been completed.

The city has assured homeowners that the new rates they must pay will be as close as possible to inflation rates.

"They have gone mad. I will certainly object," Hohlbein said.

He had made no improvements to the property since 2007, he said. The building was completed in 2000.

Brown said no improvements had been made to the Constantia property either since 2007. "The property is still in the condition in which it was bought," she said, adding that they would definitely object because the rates "will definitely be too high".

Piet van der Merwe, the principal of Bill Rawson Properties in Hout Bay, said the average annual increase in the market value of houses in Hout Bay since 2007 was "not more than 5 percent".

"In some cases the market value has been less than 5 percent. In others it hasn't changed at all, but it has not been more," he said.

According to Propstats, a sales database for members of the Institute of Estate Agents, the average market value for all properties in Hout Bay was R2 245 199 in 2007. It was R2 475 640 in 2009.

Emil Weichardt, valuations operations manager for the City of Cape Town, said Hohlbein's objection would be dealt with swiftly.

"If there is an error it will be resolved. We have put a number of processes in place to resolve objections much more swiftly than we did last time. We have changed the whole process around and automated a whole lot of things.

"Why there has been this massive increase I can't say. There could be reasons for it. We have to look at each one individually."

From a valuation point of view, he said, they had a far more thorough quality control process this time around.

"We had about six months to perform quality control of residential valuations.

"Generally speaking, I would suggest that the results would be much better, but you will always find the odd one wrong. It is just the nature of the beast. With 780 000 properties you are going to get errors," Weichardt said.

Property owners have 60 days in which to object to valuations they think are incorrect. The public inspection and objection period began yesterday and will end on April 30.

Objection forms can be collected at any of the 18 public inspection venues and can be downloaded from the city's website at www.capetown .gov.za/propertyvaluations

Completed objections can be e-mailed to valuationsobjection @capetown.gov.za, faxed to 086 588 6042 or posted to The City of Cape Town, for attention: The Objection Co-ordinator, Box 4522, Cape Town 8000.

Cape Argus

Posted at 03:01PM Feb 23, 2010 by Editor in Residential  |  Comments[8]