Private property company Trafalgar Property Management – which owns several apartment blocks in the city – has taken the Tshwane Metro Council to court over the billing of its electricity arrears. The dispute has been going on for the past six years.
The property company first noticed in 2005 that about 30 body corporates under its management were facing huge debts to the council because the council was billing them for the individual owners’ arrear accounts.
The council was also disconnecting the electricity supplies to entire blocks of flats rather than to the individual owners who had not paid their bills.
Trafalgar’s Pretoria manager, Adele Olivier says that the debts increased along with reconnection fees and interest charges.
The council has apparently promised to rectify the problems but continued charging Trafalgar and its clients for the arrears and additional charges accrued through issuing final demands, cut-off notices and interest.
She says that within a short time the 30 body corporates had fictitious debts amounting to hundreds of thousands of Rands. Olivier said that while the council promised to rectify the problems it simply never did.
She accused council officials of blatant laziness, sheer incompetence and wasting taxpayers’ money without a care. Council spokesman Tonsole Tleane refused to comment because the matter was due before the courts claiming that it was sub judice.
Olivier says the bungle by the council has negatively affected property prices in the blocks that it manages.
She says that a court order obtained by Trafalgar in 2009 compelling the council to rectify the billing problems had been ignored as only about 30% of the affected accounts had been corrected.
Trafalgar is proceeding with legal action against the council.
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