A Conveyancer’s Diary: Monday 19th April 2010

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The case of Mr. T and his huge water consumption

Mr. T owns a unit in a sectional title complex which, so I have heard, is quite notorious for the many problems that this complex has.

Mr. T has sold his unit and as part of the normal conveyancing routine, my offices requested the eThekwini Municipality to provide a Rates Statement [which the eThekwini Municipality calls an “Attorney’s Report”, a rather misleading appellation.]

We then duly received this report and it showed, next to the item “water”, that there was an amount of R12,200.00 owing by Mr. T. So, Mr. T or the occupants of his 54 square meter unit are alleged to have consumed some Twelve thousand Rands worth of water. They must have filled and emptied the entire unit a few times!

My assistant alerted Mr. T to this and gave him a copy of the “Attorney’s Report”. He, so I understand, took this to the good people of the eThekwini Municipality located at the Florence Mkhize building there in the heart of Durban. He came back to us with an amended “Attorney’s Report”, on which this amount for water was now totally omitted.

I can but only guess that the Body Corporate of this complex is in arrears with its water account and our wise and wonderful eThekwini Municipality decided to lump the entire bill onto the poor shoulders of Mr. T.

Regards,
Sieg

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Quote:

“Creditors have better memories than debtors”

Benjamin Franklin

[In the movie, “Slumdog Millionaire”, Jamal is asked the question: “Whose face appears on the US $100 dollar note?” See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_one_hundred-dollar_bill]