The high court in a landmark judgment that serves as a warning for South Africa's more than a thousand retirement developments ruled that administrative gaps are no reason to evict a person.
A 78-year-old widower narrowly avoided eviction from his Alberton home after the High Court ruled retirement villages cannot evict surviving spouses due to paperwork errors.
The court set aside the life-rights committee’s decision to evict him.
It is a judgment that shines the spotlight on how life‑right operators need to treat spouses, says Johlene Wasserman, Director and Head of Community Schemes and Compliance at law firm Van Deventer Dowlath & Marx Incorporated.
She explains that when Mrs AB bought a life-right at the NG Kerk Brackenhurst retirement village in 2010, she was divorced and listed no spouse. Nine years later she married Mr HJB, who moved in and lived there without anyone objecting.
