Eviction loophole sealed up by Cape judges

Landlords cannot get round the law on evictions by prosecuting illegal occupants for trespassing‚ the Cape Town High Court has ruled.

The ruling came after a Worcester woman appealed against her conviction and sentencing in the Boland town’s magistrate’s court for housebreaking with intent to trespass.

Sophia du Plessis‚ 40‚ broke into the house‚ owned by the Western Cape provincial government‚ in February 2014. It had been vacated by the previous tenant and boarded up‚ but Du Plessis took up occupation illegally with her 15-year-old son and refused to leave.

The two judges who heard her appeal upheld her conviction but amended her sentence of a R3‚000 fine or nine months’ imprisonment‚ removing the condition that she should not contravene the Trespass Act during the five years for which the jail term was suspended.

Du Plessis’s lawyer argued that the condition was indirectly aimed at eviction‚ which ought to be dealt with under the Prevention of Illegal Eviction Act.

The judges said: “(Her) continued presence on the property would violate the Trespass Act and thus result in a triggering of the sentence if she has nowhere else to stay.

“The Director of Public Prosecutions should not allow prosecutions for trespass to be used as a means to procure a person’s eviction without compliance with the onerous but salutary provisions of the PIE Act.”