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Watch your title deeds, owners warned

Landowners in especially the rural areas of Hartbeespoort should ensure that their land ownership deeds are still in their names. This warning follows the discovery by one resident in Rietfontein that the land, in a trust for the family, had been sold to a developer from another province and that the deed had already been registered in his name without the family?s knowledge at the beginning of this year.
The resident, who asked to remain anonymous due to ongoing court proceedings, wants to warn others that if they are not careful, the same could happen to them. She told Kormorant that the family discovered something was amiss when the developer turned up at their property earlier this year, saying that he just wanted a look at his land. He also warned that they would have to move as he planned to develop the property.
This set in motion an investigation which led to the discovery that their family trust shares the same surname in the trust name as another one in another province, although it does not have the same number. The other trust turned out to be insolvent and apparently a big retail bank was attaching the property in this trust, although what followed was done to the property belonging to the Rietfontein family. The resident said that a copy of the deed of their property in Rietfontein was procured and that this was used to first put the land up for sale on auction where the land was sold for R100 000 to an elderly woman in November last year. On the same day of the auction it was again sold to the developer for over R1 million.
Because the Rietfontein family?s trust does not have a bond on the property, the original deed is at the office of their lawyer and the resident said that at no time was anyone at their property - not to evaluate the property or for an auction.
?All of this was done without as much as a signature from either myself or the other trustees. We managed to trace the elderly woman who supposedly bought the property at the auction for R100 000. She said that the address on the sales contract was incorrect and that she has never heard of a transaction such as was described. The sales contract itself has pen marks of information being changed by hand, including sales dates, and does not even have the appearance of a valid contract,? the resident said. She questioned how property held in trust can be sold so easily without the trustees? signatures and without their lawyers knowing.
The family is now caught in a legal battle with them demanding that the property be transferred back to the family trust and the developer demanding his money back.
?This has been a very difficult time and all we want is to have the property back that rightfully belongs to us,? the resident said.
According to her she knows of another local landowner who has been affected in the sane way and that is why she wants to warn others to be careful. ?With the area developing at the pace that it is, it seems that some will resort to anything to get a hold of land to develop,? she said.

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23 October 2008