If the City of Johannesburg is still billing you for a sold property, don't pay up. Here are the steps to take to settle your account for good.

Selling a home and transferring ownership should mark the end of a resident's relationship with their old municipal account. Yet, many former homeowners in Johannesburg continue to receive monthly bills from the City of Johannesburg.

One of them is journalist (and former Business Maverick staffer) Ruan Jooste, who sold her property in March to move to Cape Town. Despite closing her account and completing the transfer months ago, she has continued to receive utility bills for the new owner. To complicate matters further, when the new tenant tried to create a new account in their name, they were informed that the electrical meter installed was illegal and slapped with a R14,000 bill, despite Jooste receiving a certificate of clearance before transferring the property.

"And I wrote them a scathing email, like, excuse me, firstly, when was it reported that it was illegal? Who did the inspection? Where's the inspection report? And I sent a long email to City Power and they still haven't returned my call," she said.

As a result, she has to manually send the utility bills to the new tenant so he can pay them. Although it isn't her responsibility, she feels empathetic. She was in the...