SA Affordable Housing March / April 2018 // Issue: 69 | Page 7

NEWS
corporate, homeowners’ associations, share blocks
and retirement villages may bring their disputes to
the Ombudsman’s office.
“The Ombud will decide whether the dispute must
be dismissed, mediated or arbitrated. If the matter
goes as far as arbitration, then the arbitrator’s award
can be made as a Magistrates’ or High Court order. It
can be appealed on points of law. The fee for applying
to the Ombud to resolve a dispute is R50. Once it
reaches adjudication, R100 is payable. If the
adjudication is outsourced by CSOS, the private
adjudicator will be bound by a daily fee prescribed by
CSOS. The CSOS amount payable is based on the
development’s monthly levy approved at the AGM.
The first R500 of the levy is exempt. Any amount over
and above the R500 will attract a CSOS tariff of 2%,
capped at R40 per month,” she notes.
Constas notes that CSOS’s latest quarterly report
provides some interesting insights into the
complexity of community scheme living, and the role
being played by the Ombud Service in making conflict
resolution less painful and costly than it used to be.
“Disagreements are bound to arise when people
are living in close proximity, and as could be
expected, most of the cases handled by CSOS in the
final three months of last year came from sectional
title schemes. Most of the individuals who applied for
dispute resolution were aged over 50,” she reveals.
Based on the CSOS report, the issues that proved
the biggest bugbears for community scheme
stakeholders between October and December 2017
were financial issues and disagreements about private
and common areas.
“Since South Africa has the fourth highest
concentration of community schemes in the world,
the implementation of the Community Schemes
Ombud Service is a very positive development. Once
the service achieves its goal of becoming self-
funding, it will be able to provide a truly world class
alternative dispute resolution platform, as well as
education and consumer campaigns which will
empower schemes, owners, trustees and directors,
and which will ensure better access to justice for all.”
Offering quality assurance of community schemes’
governance documentation is also an important
aspect of CSOS’s role, she states. This includes
ensuring the quality of the rules of existing schemes
and approving the rules of new schemes.
“Any unreasonable rules which are compiled by
trustees will be scrutinised by the Community
Schemes Ombud Service, which has the power to
withhold a compliance certificate for the rules of the
scheme. The legal office of the Ombud Service has
indicated that any rules which conflict with the model
rules will not be permitted,” she concludes.
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MARCH - APRIL 2018
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