Africa-Press – South-Africa. Johannesburg Finance MMC Dada Morero said the City was concluding objections raised regarding the property rate increase.
Morero said the City had completed around 20 000 of the 40 000 objections. It is expected to be concluded by mid-September.
The City raised property rates by 2%, as part of its R80.9 billion budget.
In June, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) asked the City to suspend the 2% increase until all objections were resolved.
OUTA said delaying the hike would offer residents and businesses some relief “until a credible conclusion has been reached between the City and the particular ratepayer”.
It said the method used by the City’s valuers may have resulted in mistakes on certain property values regarding “fairness and reasonableness”.
Responding to this, Veli Hlophe, the deputy director of the City’s rates policy department, said the General Valuation Roll 2023 process allowed 80 days for anyone who felt their property was incorrectly valued to register objections.
He said the objection period had closed – and the City had received around 40 000 objections, which is about 6% of the 934 652 properties.
“If [residents] had an issue, they should have addressed the issue. The process is closed, and [the City] has legally complied with all processes.”
He said residents could lodge a Section 78 query, if there were still objections.
OUTA is running a public survey to see how property owners have been affected by the increase.
It said: “OUTA believes the City may have inaccurately assessed property values and disregarded objections. To encourage fairness, OUTA encourages residents to participate in our survey, whether the property owner has objected to the new valuation or not.”
The organisation said some owners only received their valuation notices at the end of May, after the objection deadline date.
“Because of the delayed notice, these residents weren’t afforded an opportunity to object.”
OUTA said the City had not responded to its initial letter, which called for a halt on the 2% tariff increase until all objections had been finalised.
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