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New owner claims he was tricked into paying bond

Jabulile Mndaweni has vowed that she will not vacate the house she is accused of occupying after tricking its new owner.

Jabulile Mndaweni has vowed that she will not vacate the house she is accused of occupying after tricking its new owner.

Sipho Radebe said that he had paid off the bond on the house after speaking to Mndaweni, who agreed that she would leave the house when the bond was paid.

He said that after the house was registered in his name, Mndaweni changed her tune.

"I was shocked that the woman tricked me into paying off her bond when she had no intention of vacating.

"She told me I would have to walk over her dead body before I could occupy the house," said Radebe.

He said his estate agent had not been helpful either.

The contract to purchase stipulated that it was the estate agent's duty to help evict the occupants, but the company had done nothing to help.

Radebe said: "This is really unfair, I am renting a back room for R500 and repaying a bond for a house I can't occupy."

His monthly bond repayment is R1600.

Consumer Line visited Mndaweni in Zola, Soweto.

She said her late husband owed R5000 on the house when the bank auctioned it.

"I was not notified about the auction. I would have paid the money if I had been told about it," said Mndaweni.

She refused to show Consumer Line her bank statement. She said she would not move from the house she has occupied since 1958.

l Kaizer Bene is in the same boat as Radebe. He bought a house from Get-A-Home in November 2004, but has been unable to occupy it.

"The house was registered in my name in February 2005 and the occupants were given an eviction order the same year. They refuse to move.

"Attempts to evict them were futile. I asked Get-A- Home to sell the house, but they have not," said Bene.

Lindi Vilakazi, a sales manager at Get-A Home, said Bene has not been cooperative.

"He refused to sign an addendum allowing Get-A- Home to take legal action against the illegal occupants."

Vilakazi said that Bene had waited far too long to move into the house.

She acknowledged that Bene had asked Get-A-Home to sell the house and it has been put on market.

But was the agency not off-loading the problem on to another unsuspecting buyer?

"No, there is a lot of cooperation and illegal occupants must realise that they cannot resist eviction when they are in breach of contract."

But Vilakazi could not explain why Get-A-Home took three years to evict the occupants from Bene's house.

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