Court Ruling Shows The Hidden Rates Costs In Residential Estates
Two residential estates in Johannesburg which is another word for a security controlled estate last week lost a supreme court battle with regard to their electricity tariffs.
The two residential estates have 290 and 620 properties with the problem being they have service facilities like restaurants, coffee shops and a gym. Those have to be charged at business rates for electricity units so the combined 910 properties are paying the roughly 75% higher business tariffs for electricity.
The property developers who sold the package deal to the home owners would surely be to blame for this and the ones who you would think would have to rectify this. The supreme court ruled in favor of the electricity supplier stating that the businesses were at a higher tariff rate and with there being no individual meters. Domestic rates cannot apply even though this was argued that this was part of the domestic lifestyle that was sold to the owners of the properties.
The problem lies with there being no meters and obviously the developers do not want to fit that bill. This is wild in my opinion as who would not have utility meters on the property and agree to have a communal bill. Surely the restaurants and other businesses could just have separate meters which you would have thought was obvious from the beginning. Being an outsider following this case I would have thought this was too obvious and simple common sense.
From my understanding each property pays a monthly rate which would be a combined fee covering security, estate maintenance plus water and electricity which would be a grand total divided by all the properties. This is why the residents would not necessarily know if what they were paying was excessive or not. From my understanding the properties are at a premium price and the monthly rates were never cheap and why you needed to be financially well off to live there. The estates that have the businesses on site must be scary expensive if utilities are being charged at 75% more.
Some estates have so many extra attractions and activities on offer inside you would need deep pockets to afford to live there anyway.
What this court ruling does is question every other large residential estate who has similar facilities within the grounds of the estate. These are not the only two and there must be hundreds of others where either the electricity provider has been undercharging or has been over charging without the residents being fully aware.
Some estates have spoken about going off the grid entirely and with what they have been paying it would pay them to do this immediately. A quick fix would be to supply and fit the utility meters for the businesses and let everyone pay in to get this done which would be the cheapest option.
What we have is basic security with the area monitored via guards and cameras and is likely to be 20 x cheaper than what the residential lifestyle estates are charging.
The idea living on a residential estate may sound great, but when you hear about the hidden costs like the rates which always rise annually you may as well have your own property outside. Where I currently live now is a poor mans secure estate which we control the private security. This means it is affordable for everyone without another company managing and charging extra for doing so.
Posted Using INLEO