This is the last chance for Gauteng owners of property in the Western Cape to object to their valuations for rates.  After the closing dates, valuations and corresponding rates will be fixed for the next four years.  Every municipality in the country is required to produce a General Valuation Roll at least every 4 years. The GV is essentially a register of all properties in a municipality's jurisdiction, along with their value and other pertinent information. The municipality uses these property values to calculate the Property Rates levy charged to property owners as Assessment Rates.

Unfortunately, municipalities do not have the resources to accurately value each and every property in their jurisdiction, which means that over- and under-valuations are inevitable.

We alert you to the following points regarding a GV:

·         All valuation objections have to be submitted during a specified objection window period (see below).

·         After this objection period your municipal property valuation will be set in stone until the next valuation period.

·         Therefore, if any of your properties are over-valued, you will be overpaying on rates for the next 4 years (or until the next valuation period).

The following list of Western Cape municipalities are publishing and implementing a new GV roll this year. The municipalities are arranged according to objection deadlines:

The Stellenbosch and Saldanha Bay objection windows are already closed.

Gauteng owners of property that is situated in the jurisdiction of any of the municipality’s above (not including Stellenbosch and Saldanha Bay obviously), be sure to scrutinize your proposed municipal valuation before it’s too late.

Sean Philip of Venn Diagnostics – a firm that specialises in the reduction of municipal rates and service charges for companies – says that “too many companies just trust that their municipal property valuations are fair, however in reality it is simply not possible for a municipality to accurately value every property within their municipal boundary; in fact I would be surprised if 80% of these properties were attributed acceptable. By not doing its own investigation into the true market value of its properties, a company is exposing itself to the risk of unnecessarily inflated overheads.”

With Eskom’s latest electricity price increases infuriating Gauteng consumers, South Africans can ill afford to be overpaying on their rates bills over the next four years as well.   Contact SPhilip@venn.co.za or visit the www.venn.co.za website for more info.