A group of Ida’s Valley residents officially became homeowners after receiving their title deeds from the Stellenbosch Municipality at a handover event on 29 April.
This was according to a press release by Stuart Grobbelaar, the spokesperson for Stellenbosch Municipality. The event formed part of the Ida’s Valley Housing Project, which is the first project of its kind in the area in nearly four decades, stated Grobbelaar. During the course of the event, the mayor of Stellenbosch, Gesie van Deventer, handed over 77 title deeds to Ida’s Valley residents, according to the release.
[The entrance to Ida’s Valley, Stellenbosch. PHOTO: Wessel Krige]
“Handing over title deeds is important as it provides people with ownership. A title deed acts as a passport to economic participation and inclusion,” said Grobbelaar in email correspondence with MatieMedia.
Grobbelaar explained that owning homes provided the people of Ida’s Valley with “security and an asset that can be transferred to future generations”.
The Ida’s Valley Housing Project has been in operation since Van Deventer took office in 2016. In this time, over 2 000 title deeds have been transferred to homeowners, according to Grobbelaar.
The funds and expertise that the Khaya Lam project has provided to Stellenbosch Municipality has allowed the transferral of 724 title deeds to homeowners, according to Khaya Lam, an organisation that aims to secure the property rights of previously dispossessed people in South Africa. PHOTO: Wessel Krige
A partnership in support of homeowners
The municipality will continue to transfer title deeds to homeowners as quickly as possible, according to a statement by Van Deventer in the Stellenbosch Municipality press release. Backlogs in the transferral process are being addressed with the support of the Khaya Lam project, according to the release.
The Khaya Lam project, which forms part of the Free Market Foundation, aims to “secure the property rights of between 5 and 7 million previously dispossessed families in South Africa by giving them the title deeds to their homes”, according to the Khaya Lam website. It relies on fundraising and donations to achieve this, according to the website.
“There is a national ‘Title Restoration Project’ which pays a fixed amount for a title deed where these have never been issued,” said Perry Feldman, project manager of the Khaya Lam project, in email correspondence with MatieMedia.
“This amount does not take into account the expense of having documents signed, verification that the resident is the eligible person, copies of mother deeds from which to transfer and a myriad of other complications,” added Feldman. The aim of Khaya Lam is to address some of the costs that the national title restoration project does not cover. The cost per deed is usually R8 000. However, Khaya Lam has managed to cut the titling cost to only R2 600 per deed by simplifying the process of obtaining ownership, according to Feldman.
The Khaya Lam project considers their partnership with the Stellenbosch Municipality as a “true public/private partnership”, according to Khaya Lam. PHOTO: Supplied/Suné de Bruin
The Khaya Lam project has made some of its staff and resources available to the Stellenbosch Municipality in order to assist with the transferral of title deeds, and to “fill the funding and competency gaps that the municipality has” in relation to the transfer of title deeds, said Feldman.