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ECONOMIC REVIEW

South African retail sales for May grew by a disappointing 2.4% year on year. This lacklustre performance is ascribed to an erosion in the growth of disposable income of individuals.

The IMF has said that our VAT system is one of the most efficient in the world. Our compliance

BUSINESS REVIEW

The shortage of funds available to the State has resulted in all manner of quite clever slogans: the term

PROPERTY REVIEW

Ooba says that the strong price growth in the home loan sector in the 2nd quarter is probably short-lived. It is expected that, with interest rates rising and the consumer confidence index indicating caution, a moderation in property prices will develop.
On the back of this comes a report that Deeds Office records show that the transfer of Durban properties is 10% down on the figure for the first 6 months of last year. A similar pattern was found in Cape Town and Johannesburg with drops of 9.5% and 6.1% respectively.

FNB

PRACTICE REVIEW

The brouhaha that resulted from the striking down of a number of emolument attachment orders has resulted in a plethora of calls for the reform of debt collection. Yawn.

Another contentious issue is the proposed raising of the age limit for the consumption of alcohol with associated liability for the providers of liquor. This is an old debate: one can have s@x at 16, join the army at 18, but cannot drink liquor until 21?

I have been forwarded two Pretoria circulars on SPLUMA

CASES & SUCH

Sale of leasehold rights after conversion

Conveyancers and estate agents routinely sell and transfer properties registered in the name of a black person and, less often, his spouse. In a recent case the family took umbrage at such a sale and successfully had the sale struck down by the Johannesburg High Court. The argument ran that the seller held the property merely as a custodian for the family and had no right to sell the property to a third party. I confess to be somewhat at a loss as a result of this judgement. How would a conveyancer or estate agents know that he is dealing with communal and not individual land ownership? A great many erstwhile leaseholder right sites have been converted into freehold and the registered owners routinely deal in these.
Ntshalintshali [2015] ZAGPJHC 123

Ostensible authority

When a person deals with a representative of a company (not a CC), one should ensure that the person that one is dealing with has the authority to do what he contracts to do. In this case, a motor dealer had sold a second-hand vehicle on behalf of a trust. The sale was for less than the agreed sale price. When the trustees objected, the dealer responded by saying that the branch manager was not authorised to do on behalf of that dealer. The only way out was for the trust to show that the seller

QUOTABLES

Advice is just ego and ignorance disguised as helpfulness. Dilbert

WEIRD & WONDERFUL

Holy cow?: questions are increasingly being asked about the SACP

LIGHTEN UP

Raai wat hoor ek vandag? vra n man sy vrou. Wat skat? vra sy. Die posman het elke vrou in ons straat al verlei, behalwe een. Mmm se sy vrou, ek wed jou dis Koue Katrien van langsaan.