Johannesburg property owners had only until Friday to object to the value of their properties as given in the 2018 general valuation roll, the city said on Wednesday.
The city revalued all housing and commercial properties in its administrative jurisdiction in 2017, but the revaluations set off a broad public outcry after some property owners received increases in their property valuations of more than 100%.
The revaluations sparked fear of unaffordable hikes in property rates.
Mayor Herman Mashaba stepped in on behalf of residents, saying 8,000 properties would be issued with section 76 notices, which had revised property values on them.
After he was inundated by residents’ complaints about the valuations, Gauteng Premier David Makhura asked for weekly updates from the city and the provincial department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs.
The city said that property owners who wanted to object to their valuations had only two days left, as the objections closed on April 6 at 3pm.
Funzela Ngobeni, member of the mayoral committee for finance, said the general valuation roll, which was available for inspections and objections on the city’s website, had been visited 316,909 times, with 24,653 users lodging their objections there.
Ngobeni said another way of objecting was to go to a walk-in venue that has been assigned to deal with the objections. There were 12 such centres.
Supporting evidence
The finance department indicated that a reason for the objection should be included, along with evidence to support the objection.
One type of evidence was that a property owner should get a professional valuer to value the property in question and the report should then be submitted with the objection.
Another example was to speak to an estate agent about the properties in the neighbourhood and about properties that were sold around July 1 2017 that were similar to the property in question.
Any other information that the property owner thought would influence the property’s value, such as crime, the condition of the building and where it was located, should be included.
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