In a recent case summary compiled by STBB, a purchaser was not happy to pay the same levies as everyone else due to the benefits that he felt he was not receiving. It’s an interesting read and holds fair warning to those about to purchase within a membership of an owners association.
The case is: Kingsmead Office Park Owners Association v Shasri Investments CC [2012] JOL 29586 (KZD)
Where a purchaser agrees in a sale agreement to be bound to the provisions of an owners association, he cannot later on refuse to pay levies merely because his property receives less benefit from the communal benefits (such as fencing and garden areas) than other owners. This is because he is contractually bound to comply with the association's rules and regulations.
FACTS
Kingsmead Office Park Owners Association (‘KOPOA’) was a non-profit company whose members were owners of erven within Kingsmead Office Park. Each purchaser of an erf in the office park was, in terms of the provisions of the sale agreement, obliged to become a member of KOPOA and to abide by its provisions, including the payment of levies for the upkeep and maintenance of the office park. In terms of KOPOA’s founding documents, it was obliged to impose and collect levies from its members in order to manage the office park.
One of the owners was Shasri Investments CC (‘Shasri'). KOPOA sued Shasri for payment of unpaid levies amounting to some R200 000 which Shasri refused to pay as it argued that it did not enjoy the same benefits as some of the other erven in the office park. It did not have, for example, the benefit of the perimeter fence and a park that was contained within the office block development. Further development to the scheme was envisaged which could include Shasri’s erf in the perimeter fencing and grant it access to the central park, but these were still being decided on.
HELD
- The levies claimed from Shasri were lawfully raised, as owners of properties within the office park were contractually bound to pay levies. This is the consequence of signing the agreement of sale in which the purchaser undertook to become a member of and be bound to the articles of association of the owners association, KOPOA.
- As such, Shasri could not simply withhold levies as recourse for his complaints. He should, instead, have pursued some other form of remedy. Judgment was accordingly granted in favour of KOPOA.
