As the old saying goes: The three key ingredients to any successful business venture are location, location, location…

But in Makhado (Louis Trichardt), location apparently means absolutely nothing, judging by the most recent valuation roll for the period 2014 to 2018.

The Zoutpansberger took a closer look at the valuation roll and found that it was somewhat of a mess ... a big mess, actually. It is literally riddled with discrepancies and inaccuracies.

What immediately strikes one is that a lot of home owners became overnight millionaires. This is especially the case for property owners below Rissik Street, taking into account the value the Makhado Municipality attaches to their properties.

If the thought of being a millionaire puts a smile on your face, think again. Let’s explain by using an actual example of a small, two-bedroom home in Jeppe Street. According to the existing valuation roll, the property’s market value is listed as R450 000. This is relatively in line with similar-sized houses that sold in the immediate area during the past year for between R450 000 and R550 000. Working on the current cent-to-the-rand calculation (0.0061), minus discount, this property’s monthly property rate worked out at just under R230. Lo and behold, according to the 2014-18 valuation roll, this property’s market value is now suddenly R1 280 000. Using the same cent-to-the-rand calculation, the home owner will now have to fork out about R500 extra each month. In short, it is the difference between an annual municipal property rate bill of just under R3 000 shooting up to around R9 000 per annum.

The Zoutpansberger compared 100 properties in the town’s more affluent area, also known as Skuldbult, and 100 properties below Rissik Street (see accompanying graphics).

Of the 100 homes in the Skuldbult area, 37 were valued in the R1 million tot R1,5 million price bracket (the green patches). For this area, it could be a fair assessment, but what about the green patches in the below-Rissik-Street graphic? Here, of the 100 properties, 75 properties were also valued for between R1 million and R1,5 million.

“That’s absurd! There is no way properties below Rissik Street can be valued for the same market value as properties in the Skuldbult area!” was the reaction of one well-known estate agent.  She estimated that, on a very good day, in excellent market conditions and the property being in almost show-house condition, an average three-bedroom house below Rissik Street might fetch R900 000. But R1 million plus – there is just no way. “Below Rissik Street, banks are reluctant to grant loans, mainly because of the poor soil. Houses constantly crack and need continuous maintenance,” she added.

This begs the question: What criteria were used by the municipal valuators in determining property values? This question, along with a couple of others, was sent to the municipality almost a fortnight ago. At the time of going to press, the Zoutpansberger was still waiting for a response, despite numerous follow-up requests to reply.

Other “discrepancies” are the number of red patches in the two graphics. In the below-Rissik-Street graphic, the red patches indicate vacant properties, but in the Skuldbult area they actually represent properties with luxury homes built on them that have been valued for below R300 000, according to the new valuation roll. This might just be a slip of the finger, such as forgetting to add another zero, but if these inaccuracies are left unchallenged, it could have a huge, negative influence on the municipality’s annual property rates income. In Schimper Crescent alone there are at least 10 properties which were undervalued by R1 million or more. This translates to a loss of between R60 000 and R100 000 in municipal property rates per annum.  

These are just a few of the discrepancies and inaccuracies the Zoutpansberger picked up on when going through the 2014-18 valuation roll. The newspaper did not even take into account the numerous spelling mistakes of names and street addresses, as well as duplications in street addresses. These do, however, need to be rectified.

Having said all of this, the Makhado Municipality does need to be applauded for actually making the valuation roll available for public scrutiny. Already the municipality’s deadline for objections was extended to 30 April. It is now up to residents to take the time, visit the municipality and make sure of the correctness of their property’s valuation. It might be the difference between buying the children Christmas presents this December or not.

Municipal manager, Mr Sakkie Mutshinyali, took a further step in making the verification process easier by allowing the Zoutpansberger access to the valuation roll. This was then converted into a proper searchable database which can be accessed via the newspaper's website (www.zoutnet.co.za). Residents who want to find out what their properties are valued at, simply need to visit the site, enter their erf numbers and select the extension.