Balfour residents to receive title deeds
20 March 2012
More than 200 beneficiaries of government low-cost houses from Siyathemba Township in Dipaleseng Local Municipality (Balfour) will finally celebrate full ownership of their houses and have their dignity restored during a title deeds hand over event this Friday. The Department of Human Settlements will hand over title deeds to beneficiaries of low cost houses following the registration as owners of the houses at the Deeds Registration Office. The registration that culminates into the issuing of Title Deeds gives total ownership to the beneficiaries of their properties. The municipality recently experienced violent protests which necessitated the intervention of the National Government.
The issuing of title deeds is part of the department’s core mandate of the creation of integrated human settlements and improved households life. The objective of the hand-over of the title deeds programme is to facilitate the registration in to the names of the housing beneficiaries, ensure provision of security of tenure for housing beneficiaries, ensure the lives of beneficiaries is continuously and economically improved through guarantees with the title deeds and satisfy the provision of legislation to provide title deeds to beneficiaries.
A Title Deed is the legal document that reflects the ownership of a property, therefore extremely important as it allows home owners to make decisions that will improve their living circumstances. Title deeds also offer a sense of pride and of belonging to beneficiaries in their communities. The beneficiaries will now be able to use their title deeds to improve their dwellings, able to acquire household’s goods and make use of capital borrowing against their properties to start small businesses. Accordingly, title deeds are very critical to ensure not only security of tenure, but also the households can use their houses as an asset to build wealth.
From the municipal perspective, property ownership compels
the owners to pay municipal rates and services received, thereby contributing to
its ongoing financial viability and economic sustainability. Property ownership
allows beneficiaries to use their homes to leverage their economic circumstances
by making income. Houses can also serve as economic asset as it encourages
investment through renovations and funding for business purposes. Since 1994,
Mpumalanga has registered and issued nearly 80 thousand title deeds to
beneficiaries. The Title Deeds hand-over ceremony is scheduled to take place at
Siyathemba Community Hall, 11H00 am, (Balfour - Dipaleseng Local Municipality)
on the 23rd March 2012.
Enquiries
- Ms Phindile Sidu (Municipality)
079 417 3577 / 017 773 0055 - Mr Freddy Ngobe (Department)
082 859 4630 / 013 766 6014
Issued by Department of Human Settlements & Dipaleseng Local Municipality
