Administrative & Municipal Law

Consumers, residents and businesses often have queries and/or disputes relating to their local municipality, principal or national government or other state-owned organisations.

This branch of law deals with aspects of property law, human rights law, housing law, valuations, public law, administrative law, information law and consumer law.  The types of disputes typically dealt with include instances where a municipality incorrectly bills a person or company for amounts that they do not owe; disconnects their electricity or water supply unlawfully; does not account to a consumer properly for charges; refuses or simply doesn’t bother to issue a permission or license; fails to repair municipal infrastructure; fails to deliver municipal services; fails to decide applications (such as town planning, building plan, heritage, consolidation, subdivision, notarial tie, consent use or other kinds of applications); fails to control and stop illegal activities; fails to produce important documents like rates clearance certificates etc.

We specialise in dealing with and assisting our clients with generally anything relating to the relationship with both local and national government.

Our Administrative & Municipal Law services include:

• Dealing with issues such as billing disputes, rates and taxes issues, valuation issues and town planning and building plan disputes
• Assisting with obtaining approvals for changes of land use such as subdivision, consolidation, zoning etc.
• Advising on the interpretation and application of the Public Finance Management Act, National Treasury Regulations and Treasury Guidelines and directives
• Performing commercial litigation and arbitration proceedings relating to local government, tender and procurement law, as well as regulatory compliance
• Assisting with litigation involving the interpretation of legislation and the exercise of public power
• Providing opinions and litigation assistance regarding land use and planning
• Advising on public policies and by-laws
• Instituting damages claims in relation to municipal disputes, where the consumer suffers damages as a result of the conduct of the municipality or another government entity
• Land claims and other issues relating to land reform and expropriation
• Arranging payment plans (called “AOD’s”) with municipalities for amounts owed
• Constitutional law relating to property, including cases dealing with violations of section 9 (equality), section 10 (dignity), section 25 (property), section 26 (housing), section 27 (access to water and other socio-economic rights like welfare grants), section 32 (access to information), section 33 (just administrative action) and section 34 (access to justice and courts)