According to the latest information our conveyancing attorneys have received from officials, the Land Information System (‘the LIS’) linking the City of Johannesburg (‘the CoJ’) to the Deeds Office, which serves the Johannesburg area, remains offline – with no formal indication of when the outage will be resolved.
Unfortunately, this outage continues to impact various property-related services, including the creation of all new municipal accounts, closure of sellers’ accounts, property valuations, the change of ownership, rebate applications, and rates adjustments. Predictably, this will result in unavoidable delays for our valued clients.
Based on the latest update, stakeholders at the CoJ are convening to ensure that credit control personnel flag all pending change of ownerships during this period to avoid disconnections or unwarranted penalties.
In light of the LIS outage, purchasers should prepare for additional costs to cover rates, taxes, and services. In practice, this means that the first invoice received by the new owners will be considerably higher than usual. However, these charges will be backdated to the date of registration upon re-application.
In addition, the outage means that sellers will also experience delays in receiving their refunds as municipal accounts cannot be closed while the LIS remains unavailable.
While some sources suggest that the system could remain down for the rest of the year, this has not been officially confirmed by CoJ. Crucially, we will endeavour to keep you informed as the situation develops.
For further information and updates from the City of Johannesburg on the LIS outage, reach out to your dedicated conveyancer, paralegal, or key account manager.
For all property-related queries, contact our experienced team of conveyancing attorneys at info@stbb.co.za.
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