A Property24 reader asks:
After reading the article Can new landlord cancel my lease?, I started to wonder whether you would be able to provide me with some assistance.
My parents have been leasing a property for nearly 15 years now and have been maintaining it, at their own expenses, for this period. The owner of this property passed away earlier this year. Her son went and bought it from her estate and with this decided to increase the rent by more than twice the amount of the original agreement with the previous owner.
His reason for doing this is that as the new owner, the previous contract is no longer valid and he needs to increase the rent to accommodate his mortgage payments. I also need to mention that my parents were house friends with the previous owner and didn’t have a contract in place with her, only a verbal agreement.
Is there anything that they can do to prevent paying the new amount?
Marlon Shevelew, specialist rental and eviction attorney at Cape-based legal firm Marlon Shevelew and Associates replies:
This is an unfortunate situation where the law does not provide any real relief to the Tenant.
In the case of an oral monthly lease, in other words where rental is payable monthly, the Landlord may terminate the lease agreement on one months' notice to the Tenant. [Pareto Ltd & Others v Mythos Leather Manufacturing 2000 (3) SA 999 (W)]
The courts have also held that a monthly lease is one for an "undetermined period". Thus, in addition to the Landlord being entitled to terminate the lease on 30 days notice to the Tenant, the lease also terminates automatically on the death of the Landlord. The Tenant thereafter becomes an unlawful occupier of the property. [Ebrahim v Pretoria Stadsraad 1980 (4) SA 10 (T)].
In short, the Landlord is within his right to request an increased amount of rental, especially because of the fact that there is currently no valid lease, due to the death of the previous Landlord.
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