Residents of Sydenham Heights are in a fight to keep their homes after financial mismanagement caused them to be millions of rands in arrears.
|||Durban - Residents of Sydenham Heights are in a fight to keep their homes after financial mismanagement caused them to be millions of rands in arrears.
The community held a meeting on Sunday to try to find a way to keep their homes. They said they were unable to pay their levies because some were unemployed and some were pensioners.
The levies were paid to service the debt owed to people who manage the three blocks of flats.
Residents said the money they paid did not go towards building maintenance. They have now been threatened with evictions. The flats are owned by people who bought council-owned flats at rock-bottom prices from early 2000 under the government’s extended benefit scheme.
The Daily News previously reported that many claimed they were bullied into buying their flats, and were not told the truth about sectional title living.
Activist Desmond D’sa, who was at the meeting, said the best way to fight the evictions was to stand together. He said: “Nobody is bigger than the collective.”
D’sa said people who could afford to pay should do so because it would strengthen their case against the trustees and those who managed the flats.
He said they would consult lawyers to stop the evictions and look into how the flats were being managed financially.
One of the people who faces eviction is Buyisile Mbuyisa. The 58-year-old mother of three and grandmother of eight, said she was unemployed and struggling to make ends meet.
Mbuyisa said she received a bill of R50 000 in 2012 and an offer was made for her to settle the bill. Mbuyisa said the family survived on the grant received for the children. She said she found out that her home had been sold for R90 000 without her knowledge, even though she had a title deed to the flat.
She went to lawyers and was able to stop the sale and her eviction. Mbuyisa, who has been living in her flat for more than 20 years, said she had been constantly harassed by sheriffs, who threatened her with eviction.
One of the people fighting to help the community is Moira Damon. “People are very depressed,” she said.
Trustees entrusted with managing the building “have no knowledge about running the blocks,” she said.
Damon said the trustees were not fighting for the interests of the people.
One of the trustees at the meeting was Zelda Norris. She said the block of flats she lived in was more than R1 million in arrears. She said the block was one of the better run ones.
“It’s been tough. We don’t want to see people on the streets.” She said she hoped the meeting would lead to new ideas that would stop people being evicted.
Daily News