Our rental home was sold by Communicare and the new owners told us to vacate. What can we do?

The long answer

This is indeed a very hard story, and as you say, it is one shared by many families across South Africa.

A GroundUp article in February 2026 by Steve Kretzmann describes the housing crisis that Cape Town faces (despite it being the leading municipality in providing state-funded housing): The city has a shortfall of some 600,000 homes, but less than 2,500 state-funded homes have been handed over each year for the last five years. 

About 16,000 people annually migrate to the Western Cape from other provinces and they mostly settle in Cape Town. Kretzmann sees little possibility that state-funded housing can cope with those numbers, given the budget cuts by the National Department of Human Settlements to the province, which amount to millions of rands. 

Demand far outstrips supply in Cape Town, and it has the highest property prices in the country: the average price of a two-bedroomed house was R2.7-million last year, says Kretzmann. This is unaffordable for all but about 6.5% of the population who earn above R51,201 per month. 70% earn between R1,601 and R25,600 a month, according to a 2024 City of Cape Town Household Survey.

So what can be done? 

Kretzmann reports that the City is pushing to use more municipal land for social and mixed-income housing. The idea is to release vacant and underused public land to developers at a discounted price, for them to build units that are rented rather than sold, that stay affordable “for future generations of qualifying households”. The City would require the developers to include housing units that are affordable to middle and low-income earners, besides catering to higher-income earners. This is known as inclusionary zoning.

But sadly, Kretzmann notes that the City of Cape Town has not yet finalised its inclusionary zoning housing policy.

This may be of interest: in Parow, there is something called the Enhanced Extended Discount Benefit Scheme (EEDBS). It says that it is “…a National Housing Programme subsidy intended to motivate and facilitate the transfer of public housing stock (delayed transfer properties, saleable rental units and serviced sites) to qualifying occupants.”

“If you qualify, you will receive a discount on any outstanding debt associated with your property (purchase price, services, rental, loans), and in some cases your debt may be written off in full depending on your monthly income and other qualifying criteria.”

These are the contact details for this scheme:

Housing hotline:021 444 0333
Customer care hotline: 0800 323 130
Email: homeownership.admin@capetown.gov.za

And finally, there is the Western Cape Rental Housing Tribunal, which is a free and accessible way of resolving disputes between landlord and tenants. The tribunal can investigate and lay down what a fair rent would be, in a given dispute.

You will certainly have heard of it when the Ruyterwacht properties were sold by Communicare. At that time, tenants whose rents had been put up sharply by the new owners (which included a Communicare subsidiary called Goodfind Properties) took the rent increases up with the Rental Housing Tribunal, which found that the proposed rent increases were unfair rental practice.

If you needed to consult it, these are the contact details:

Email: rht.enquiries@westerncape.gov.za

Physical address: Ground Floor, 27 Wale Street, Cape Town, 8001

Call Centre: 0860 106 166

General Enquiries: 021 483 5020 / 6495 / 3283

I’m sorry that we can’t offer more help with your urgent housing crisis.

Wishing you the best,
Athalie