Thanks for bringing this up, Yolandi. It is not really the news I'd like to spread, but now that you've brought it up, I guess we should tell the whole story.
For those of you that have not read the articles about the Johannesburg Deeds Office eviction (articles here, here and here), here is the skinner news:
Many government departments rent office premises from private sector owners. And usually governments tends to be good and responsible tenants, but sometime things go wonky, even though we the taxpayers pay the bills. And this is the situation the Johannesburg Deeds Office created for itself, mainly by not taking care of business in good time.
The lease agreement between the Jo'burg Deeds Office and their landlord, a private company known as ApexHi Properties, expired at the end of September this year (2007). The Deeds office was aware that the lease was about to expire, which is why they called for tenders for a new office lease.
The tenders would be valid until the end of August, which means (to any reasonable person IMO) that a decision has to be taken before then. The tender conditions reportedly did not make mention of requirements for a short lease period, so ApexHi tendered a 5 year lease at R50 per square meter (which seems rather cheap to me).
But then the Deeds Office failed to sign any of the tendered leases. They seem to have ignored the tenders - only requesting an extension for the tenders after they already expired. And then, procrastinating a little more, it seems, until their lease lapsed. Only then the deeds office decided to start negotiating with their current landlord about a lease for no more than 2 years.
Now I might be wrong, but it seems to me as if any reasonable Joe whose lease expired, who cannot afford to move at short notice, and who has a perfectly reasonable lease in front of him, ready to be signed, would think twice about playing hardball with his landlord. But that seems to be what the good (?) folks at the Joburg Deeds Office decided to do.
Now comes the juicy bit: A month after the expiration of the lease, the landlord locked out the tenant! So a hoard of deeds office employees pitched up at work, but was stuck on the sidewalk in Rissik street, until those brash decision makers in the high positions at the Deeds office got a locksmith to unlock the offices again. (This seems a bit like squatter behaviour to me, especially when the next step they take is not to get a proper lease in place, but to bring an urgent application before the high court to prevent the landlord from locking them out or evicting them.)
Well, the court did not agree with the Deeds Office that they should get 8 months to move to other premises. Instead, the landlord was granted an order to evict the Johannesburg deeds office on the 27 of November. Oh, hold on, that's today!
It takes time to move a government department. They tend to have lots of stuff, you know. And although a spokesperson reported that they found another spot just up the street, the move will hardly be an easy affair. The public and especially property professionals will probably end up suffering most for the Deeds Office's procrastination in timely negotiating a lease for their offices.
Now, I have one question for you guys: What do you call a Deeds Office without an office?!!
I guess Jo' Deeds will be sleeping on the streets tonight...
