This is a user-friendly guide that explains the rights of farm dwellers and the law in relation to evictions from farmland. It gives advice on how farm dwellers can navigate the legal processes involved in eviction proceedings and practically resist evictions. It is a resource for farm dwellers facing eviction from their homes, as well as for farm worker unions, community-based paralegals and lawyers. The guide was developed by SERI and the Commercial Stevedoring Agricultural and Allied Workers Union (CSAAWU).

This guide explains your rights and the law regarding evictions, and gives practical advice on how to resist them. It is a resource for individuals, households and communities who are facing eviction from their homes, as well as for community-based paralegals, CBOs, social movements etc. The guide covers a number of different issues: what is an eviction, what the law says about evictions, when an eviction is unlawful, the lawful process for an eviction, how to oppose a lawful eviction, and how to resist an unlawful eviction.

This guide explains the sale-in-execution process and sets out what steps homeowners can take to avoid their houses being sold in execution. Courts are legally required to make sure that sales-in-execution follow the proper legal process and that the interests of both homeowners and banks are balanced and protected. The laws which regulate sales-in-execution are complex and come from many sources. This guide will help homeowners prevent sales-in-execution before they happen.

Relocations have the potential to severely disrupt peoples’ lives and negatively impact their livelihoods, community relations and sense of security. To make sure this doesn’t happen, the relocation process should be carefully planned, well-run and participatory. SERI developed this set of legal and practical guidelines to assist those involved in the relocation process to navigate the complexities involved in planning for and carrying out a relocation.

The report provides a brief history of farm labour in South Africa tracing its roots in slavery and colonial dispossession through to the emergence of state supported commercial agriculture and the subsequent deregulation of the agricultural sector. This is with a view to contextualising the examination of tenure security and identifying the impacts on people living and working on land owned by others. The report provides a scan of the legal reforms and measures instituted in the first decade of democracy in order to reverse the injustices of the past.

Issues surrounding labour tenancy in South Africa are controversial and complex. The issue is controversial in that that it currently reflects a struggle over access to land and tenure security that spans more than a century. The controversy surrounding labour tenancy derives from the fact that the role players within this scenario often hold widely differentiated perceptions about each other’s rights, duties and respective power relationships.

Issues surrounding labour tenancy in South Africa are controversial and complex. The issue is controversial in that that it currently reflects a struggle over access to land and tenure security that spans more than a century. The controversy surrounding labour tenancy derives from the fact that the role players within this scenario often hold widely differentiated perceptions about each other’s rights, duties and respective power relationships.

The Committee continued with deliberations on the official list of proposed amendments to the Bill (A-list) accompanied by the B version of the Bill incorporating all the proposed amendments into the Bill. A DA member pointed out that the factors that had been highlighted in clause 12(1)(a), (b), (c), (d) and (e) had no direct monetary value and it was difficult to see how these factors would affect the compensation. There was a proposal that the Department should add a clause 12(2)(g) that would focus on the actual financial loss that had been incurred by the expropriated owner.

The Deputy Minister of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR), addressed the Committee on the motivation for the amendments to the Extension of security of tenure (land) Amendment Bill, saying the fundamental resolve was to overcome decades of hardship in South Africa. Its redress was not about obsolete political stories, but about the creation of just opportunities.

The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) and the Minister briefed the Committee on the performance, outcomes and challenges of the Land Rights Management Facility, presenting the Fourth Quarter 2014 report, and also touching on the Extension of security of tenure (land) Amendment Bill. It was noted that the Land Rights Management Facility (LRMF) tried to facilitate provision of specialised legal and mediation services to indigent communities and individuals faced with violations of their rights pertaining to land and livelihood.

SALGA supports the amendments on tenure grants although it proposed that the provision of bulk services for alternative land and the delivery of municipal services should also be included in the tenure grant. SALGA supports the amendments as it affects limitations on evictions and additional rights to occupiers. The amendments on the establishment of a land rights management board and land rights management committees are also supported by SALGA. The submission discussed the challenges of evictions and the impacts of this on municipalities in detail.

To provide for measures with State assistance to facilitate long-term security of land tenure; to regulate the conditions of residence on certain land; to regulate the conditions on and circumstances under which the right of persons to reside on land may be terminated; and to regulate the conditions and circumstances under which
persons, whose right of residence has been terminated, may be evicted from land; and to provide for matters connected therewith…”