Court win for housing company that has faced intimidation campaign

The Land Claims Court has dismissed an application against social housing company Communicare, and made a punitive cost order.

• An organisation called Khoi Khoi Zan, run by disbarred advocate Vuyisile Dlova, took social housing company Communicare to court.
• Khoi Khoi Zan wanted the Land Claims Court to approve its claims on property owned by Communicare.
• Communicare showed the court that Khoi Khoi Zan has been running a campaign of intimidation since at least 2017 when it unlawfully occupied the land.
• The applicants failed to turn up to court. The judge dismissed the application and made a punitive cost order against Khoi Khoi Zan, Dlova and Simon Pasiya, who acted on the applicant’s behalf.

Communicare, a non-profit company which provides social and affordable housing in the Western Cape, has won a significant legal victory. A judge dismissed a land claim application brought at the behest of a disbarred advocate.

The claimant was an organisation called Khoi Khoi Zan. They laid claim to some properties owned by Communicare, earmarked for its social housing projects.

Communicare alleged in its court submissions that Khoi Khoi Zan is run by Prof Vuyisile Dlova, an advocate who was disbarred for misconduct in 2012.

He had given power of attorney to Simon Pasiya to act on the Khoi Khoi Zan’s behalf in the land claim application.

In dismissing the application, Judge Muzi Ncube of the Land Claims Court, ordered that Communicare’s costs be paid jointly and severally by Khoi Khoi Zan, and Pasiya and Dlova personally.

In its application, Khoi Khoi Zan was seeking several orders.

These included interdicting Communicare from selling, alienating and transferring certain properties pending the finalisation of certain land claim applications, setting aside property sales that had been previously concluded, and directing the Social Housing Regulatory Authority to cancel Communicare’s accreditation to develop and manage regulated social housing.

The applicants claimed to represent people dispossessed of land under the 1913 Land Act in the Western Cape.

Communicare, in its court papers, pointed out that in 2017 Dlova was arrested for unlawfully occupying vacant land owned by Communicare.

At a meeting that year, he had demanded that Communicare develop land known as Morningstar for the benefit of historically disadvantaged people who he referred to as Bushmen.

He said if Communicare failed to co-operate, he would continue with his unlawful occupation.

Pasiya, it is alleged, then sent a number of intimidating emails to Communicare.

Communicare said what followed was an unlawful attempt to occupy empty housing units, which were in the process of being let or being repaired for letting.

Pasiya, in an email in 2019, indicated that he had now registered a company in the name of Citizens Housing League (the former name of Communicare).

Communicare received reports that Dlovu was allegedly collecting money from prospective buyers on the basis that the League owned the properties.

Communicare, in its written arguments, said the application, which was first lodged six years ago, was “yet another stratagem of intimidation”.

It also said the “purported” claims lodged against the land, had not been substantiated.

Communicare sought a personal costs order against Pasiya and Dlova because of their “conduct of intimidation” the unlawful occupation of its property, the collection of monies from the public on the basis that the Citizen’s Housing League owned the property, and the “untruthful allegations” made in their application.

On the latest hearing date earlier this month, Khoi Khoi Zan and their legal representatives did not appear in court to argue their case.

Judge Ncube, however, directed that the matter proceeds.

After hearing Communicare’s submissions, he dismissed the application with costs.

Communicare’s attorney Chloe Scholtz, said: “The Interdict Application instituted by the Applicant was merely a tactic of intimidation and a coercive attempt to compel our client, Communicare, to make land available. It was devoid of merit, constituted an abuse of court process, and was frivolous in nature.”

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