With the end of month deadline for objections to the latest property valuations approaching, the Camps Bay Clifton Ratepayers Association (CBCRA) has urged property owners, who are dissatisfied with their valuations, to submit objections to the City electronically.
The organisation said they had had extensive talks with the executive mayor Dan Plato and the deputy mayor Ian Neilson (in his capacity as mayoral committee member for finance) over the past few weeks to better understand the new valuations and express the community’s outrage at the high increases in valuations along the Atlantic Seaboard.
“We have also met with other ratepayer associations in the area to discuss the new valuations’ impact. The City is certainly not willing to budge on its system and defends it to the end,” the organisation said in a statement released on Monday.
CBCRA said when the City first bought and implemented the “current computer-assisted mass appraisal system” over a decade ago, they (CBCRA) and others conducted a comprehensive study of its correctness, by comparing a vast number of sales against valuations (at that specific time).
They said it became clear that the valuation system was questionable and at the time, the City rejected the findings and there was no financial backing to challenge the City’s system legally.
They said the state of the market currently was not an issue – only the value as of July 2, 2018. “It could be argued that this reflects the highest that the market has ever been – 2016 and 2017 having seen sizeable increases in property values, with a large correction in 2018 and 2019. In other words, an unfair time to do a new property valuation.”
Meanwhile, the City has encouraged property owners to view the General Valuation (GV) 2018 Roll and to submit market value objections until Tuesday April 30. The proposals, including the rate-in-the-rand, will be considered for approval by Council at the end of May for implementation on July 1. Objections can be emailed to valuationsobjection@capetown.gov.za or submitted online at https://eservices.capetown.gov.za/irj/portal
