19 February 2004
Madam Speaker, The Portfolio Committee on Provincial and Local Government, has taken note, with dismay, at the character of the institution of valuers.
The demographics and the gender aspects need to be addressed. We urge the institution to take the necessary steps to rectify this unacceptable situation. During our interaction with the property valuers, as a committee, not a single black valuer or a woman valuer was present. The current situation is hopelessly skewed. The truth of the matter is that this situation does not answer the call of our democratic revolution.
This is a challenge to the institution, they must move in tendam with other progressive institutions and sectors in this country. There are hundreds of black estate agents that could be brought into the fold. To the institution we say, the ball is in your court. This committee, as mandated to exercise its oversight role, will certainly review the situation in the near future.
Madam Speaker, in the past each of the former four provinces had their own legislation and systems of valuation and rating. The system was extremely cumbersome for establishing valuation rolls. This Bill addresses these differentiations by introducing a more uniform and simple system. In terms of the new process a municipality intending to levy a rate on property must in accordance with this piece of legislation cause a general valuation. All properties must be valued.
Each municipality must appoint a municipal valuer, who will value all rateable properties in the municipality and prepare a valuation roll. Two or more municipalities may by agreement appoint the same person as a municipal valuer. A person who is not a municipal official may be appointed as a municipal valuer only through an open, competitive and transparent process.
Chapter 11 of the Municipal Finance Management Act outlines this process. The municipal manager may designate officials of the municipality or persons in private practice as assistant municipal valuers to assist the valuer of the municipality. A municipal valuer may not be a councilor of the designating municipality, if that municipality is a metropolitan or district municipality or of either the designating municipality or the district municipality in which that municipality falls, if the designating municipality is a local municipality.
A municipal valuer or assistant municipal valuer must disclose to a municipality any personal or private business interests that the valuer or any spouse, parent, child, partner or business associates of the valuer, may have in any property in the municipality and may not use the position for private gain or improperly benefit another person.
A municipal valuer or assistant municipal valuer may require the owner, tenant or occupier of a property which the valuer must value or the agent of the owner to give the value access to any document or information in possession, of the owner, tenant, occupier or agent which the valuer reasonably requires for purpose of valuing the property.
Chapter 5 of the bill provides for the criteria in which the property must be valued. The property must be valued according to its market value, i.e. that amount the property would realize if sold in the open market by a willing seller or willing buyer. In the case of sectional title schemes, each sectional title unit must be separately valued.
Madam Speaker, Chapter 6 regulates the contents and processing of the valuation rolls. It requires all rateable property to be listed on the roll, together with relevant details about each property and the owner.
Upon completion of the valuation roll, the municipal manager must within 21 days publish in the prescribed form in the provincial Gazette and once a week for two consecutive weeks advertise in the media a notice that the roll is open for public inspection and that any person who wishes to lodge an objection against any entry in the roll may do so within a stated period.
If an adjustment in the valuation of a property is more than 10% upwards or downwards, the matter must be referred to the valuation appeal board for review. The lodging of an objection does not defer liability for payment of rates.
However, if an adjustment to the valuation roll, following a successful objection affects the amount of the rate payable by the owner, the municipal manager must calculate the difference and either repay or recover the difference from the owner.
The municipal valuer's decision on any objection is not final. An objector who is not satisfied with the decision may appeal against the decision to the valuation board. The municipal manager must assist an objector to lodge an objection if that objector is unable to read or write.
In conclusion Madam Speaker, our committee would want to see a situation in which property valuers and the public at large own this piece of legislation.
It is an instrument that will be used to introduce positive changes in property valuations and fundamentally transformation the manner in which municipalities apply their rates policy.