Safeguarding children’s rights during divorce
January 15, 2017When can spouses get a divorce?
February 15, 2017
The CSOSA came into operation on 7 October 2016. One of the main purposes of CSOSA is to provide for a mechanism that can facilitate dispute resolution for community schemes. A community scheme in terms of this Act will include sectional title schemes, share block schemes, property estates and gated communities controlled by home owners’ associations as well as housing schemes for retired persons.
The Act creates a Community Schemes Ombud Service (“CSOS” or “Ombud”) which is to provide for dispute resolution between persons who have a material interest in the scheme, the body corporate or home owners’ association, members, occupiers and managing agents. The Ombud can also be approached to collect arrear levies. Any person who is party to, or materially affected by, a dispute may approach a regional Ombud for dispute resolution at a fee currently stipulated as R 50,00 per application. If the Ombud finds that the dispute cannot be resolved through a negotiated settlement by conciliation, the Ombud must refer the dispute to an adjudicator. If the dispute needs to be adjudicated a fee of R 100,00 will be charged. An order by an adjudicator is enforceable in a Magistrates Court or a High Court depending on jurisdiction.
Section 22 of the CSOSA provides that funding for the services of the Ombud must be obtained by levies collected from community schemes. The levies for the CSOS are a separate levy and must be budgeted for and recovered separately, in addition to the monthly levies. In terms of the regulations the additional levy charged on each unit is the lesser of R 40,00 or 2% of the amount by which the monthly levy exceeds R 500,00. This means that even if the monthly levy exceeds R 2 500,00 the contribution will be limited to R 40,00 and if the levy is only R 500,00 or less per month the unit will be exempt. The Body Corporate or Home Owners’ Association is required to collect the CSOS contribution from every unit monthly and pay it over to the Ombud on a quarterly basis. Sectional title scheme units located inside a property estate that pay a levy to the Body Corporate and the Home Owners’ Association can expect to pay two additional levies to the Ombud, one as a member of the Body Corporate and the other as a member of the Home Owners’ Association.
On 5 October 2016 CSOS stipulated that the Regulations on the Fees and Levy collection will only commence 90 days after publication of the regulations. The regulations was published on the 7th of October 2016 therefore collection will commence in January 2017.
Owners of properties within community schemes will do well to make sure that the CSOS levy as indicated above is correctly calculated and paid over to the Ombud. The Ombud can collect interest on overdue amounts at the rate of 24% per year compounded monthly in arrears. However the resolution of disputes by the Ombud will provide for a far cheaper (and hopefully faster) alternative to resolve issues that arise every so often between the members of a scheme and/or the management of a scheme.
(Sources: Third generation innovations to sectional title legislation and prescribed management and conduct rules – Centre for Legal Compliance compiled by Prof Cornie van der Merwe and Comment on the CSOS and STSMA – National Association of Managing Agents compiled by Adv Barbara Shingler)