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South Africa: Ruling On Farmland Awaited
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
9 May 2008
Posted to the web 9 May 2008
Sanchia Temkin
Johannesburg
THE Constitutional Court is expected to rule soon in a case that could radically change the way local authorities demarcate agricultural land.
Its decision might give more power to local authorities and dramatically reduce the extent of agricultural land.
Louis Schoeman, a director at law firm Boqwana Loon and Connellan, said yesterday the effect of the decision might be that there was no longer any strictly agricultural land in SA, and that municipalities were free to allow the development of land formerly classified as agricultural and which was in reality productive farmland.
In the case at issue, one company entered into a deed of sale with another in December 2005 in respect of several properties. The properties were part of a farm and were within the boundaries of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality in Eastern Cape. Before SA got its "wall-to-wall" municipal areas, these properties had not been within any municipal area.
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For various reasons the seller decided to get out of the sales. The buyer objected and the matter went to court, where the seller argued that even though the properties were within the municipal area when the agreement was signed, the land remained agricultural.
The high court found that the land was agricultural and could not be subdivided without ministerial consent.
The buyer successfully appealed to the Supreme Court of Appeal. The seller has since appealed to the Constitutional Court, joined by Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana, who argued that if municipalities could decide which properties were farms, there would be a disastrous effect on food supply.
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