In this CFO Talks interview, Ciaran Ryan talks to consumer legal expert Leonard Benjamin about some surprisingly easy ways to stop your home being repossessed by the banks. Also discussed are illegal garnishee orders and how banks are routinely making "errors" when it comes to calculating mortgage bond arrears.

Eight years ago debt counsellor Fanie Grové started looking at vehicle loan statements from his clients and was staggered by what he saw: in every one of more than 80 cases he examined where the borrower had fallen into arrears, he says the bank was unlawfully overcharging interest. 

In a case due to come before the Eastern Cape High Court this month, Standard Bank is accused of double charging the arrears amount owed by a mortgage client, resulting in a guest lodge being repossessed and sold at auction for a fraction of its market value.

More than 4 000 bank customers claim they were charged 30% more than whites on mortgage loans, and the case is now headed to the Equality Court.

Debt collectors are a pestilence and are expertly guided by smart lawyers to circumvent the law. Leonard Benjamin explains.

Following the lead recently set by the South Gauteng High Court, a full bench of the Cape High Court will decide this week whether to set reserve prices on repossessed homes.

On Thursday, the Constitutional Court of South Africa ruled in favour of communities arguing for a bigger say in mining decisions.

The Mining Forum of South Africa has applied to the North West High Court to have the mining licences suspended of Lonmin, as well as Eastern Platinum and Western Platinum (both controlled by Lonmin). The Forum, a not for profit organisation that seeks regulatory compliance in the mining industry, says Lonmin has shirked its Social and Labour Plan (SLP) obligations.

The campaign against corruption has just got a whole lot hotter. SA Litigation Funding Company (SALFCO) has announced two senior appointments as part of a programme to strengthen its team and expand its services as it prepares to take on several large cases involving civil and criminal claims.

The Sunday Times has apologised for running a series of bogus stories that were fed the newspaper by agents of state capture. Among them, the “rogue investigative unit” at SA Revenue Services, the “hit squad” in Kwazulu-Natal, and the rendition of suspects to Zimbabwe at the behest of that country’s security forces. None of these were true, but they had real consequences to the lives of the people who lost their jobs, careers and livelihoods as a result. Writing in The Conversation, Herman Wasserman says this is a time for self-reflection by journalists.

Eight years ago debt counsellor Fanie Grové started looking at vehicle loan statements from his clients and was staggered by what he saw: in every one of more than 80 cases he examined where the borrower had fallen into arrears, he says the bank was unlawfully overcharging interest. In some cases, the overcharge was 40-50% more than the interest allowable in terms of the National Credit Act (NCA).

In a moment of anger, ANC member Velaphi Khumalo let rip on Facebook that SA needed to be cleansed of whites, who needed to be treated as Hitler did to the Jews. He was responding to an earlier racist comment from Penny Sparrow who referred to blacks “as monkeys”. Both, no doubt, have come to rue their incautious remarks. Both recanted. But Judge Roland Sutherland of the Gauteng Equality Court was not happy with Khumalo’s apparent recantation, especially as he more recently decided it wasn’t hate speech after all. Khumalo's remarks have been declared hate speech by the Equality Court.

Banks seeking judgment against borrowers should use the magistrates’ courts, the Pretoria High Court has ruled. By bringing trifling matters before the high courts, banks are clogging up the justice system.

The Pretoria High Court struck another blow on behalf of distressed debtors last week. A full bench of three judges ruled that magistrate’s courts should be the first port of call for financial institutions seeking judgment against their clients, where matters fall within the lower courts’ monetary jurisdiction. This makes it cheaper for people to defend matters against the banks.

As we mark the 10th anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, economist Michael Hudson looks back over what we have learned in the last decade. Criminally, the major banks were bailed out but not the mortgage bond holders. Banks are bigger and more profitable than ever, but we have now entered an era of debt deflation - meaning more and more of our money is going to pay back bank debts. There is less disposable income available to purchase goods. Don't be fooled by the apparent calm of the financial system - the only way out of this is for banks to fail, or the grisly alternative - a Greece-style austerity programme, with depopulation, job losses and massive economic shrinkage.

Last week’s Joburg court case forcing judges to impose reserve prices on all auction sales resulting from bank repossession has several important ramifications, not least of which it paves the way for a class action suit against the banks for decades of stealing people's home equity in violation of the Constitution.

A full bench of the South Gauteng High Court ruled on Wednesday that repossessed homes may no longer be sold at auction without reserve prices, except in exceptional circumstances.

A full bench of the Johannesburg High Court sat last week to deliberate on how and when reserve prices should be applied before repossessed homes are sold at sheriffs’ auctions. The three judges berated the banks for arriving in court without proper paperwork and expecting to be given judgments against clients.                        

Three black Limpopo landowners have forced Police Minister Bheki Cele and Soshanguve station commander Brigadier Samuel Thine to take action against people who invaded their land in Onderstepoort‚ north of Pretoria. They turned to AfriForum to defend against the land invasion. It has also been reported that Cape Town has experienced a 53% increase in land invasions last year. As several observers have pointed out, these are the inevitable consequences of reckless talk surrounding expropriation with compensation. 

Court papers filed in the South Gauteng by two of the major mortgage banks – Standard and Absa – provide a fascinating insight into the health of SA’s property sector. There are about 8 million properties in SA, of which 82% are residential. This amounts to 6,5 million residential properties, of which 33,5% are bonded. The bonded properties were worth R2,6 trillion in 2017, amounting to 52,4% of the total value of all residential properties in SA, and 56,5% of GDP.

Agricultural industry association AgriSA said on Tuesday that it welcomed the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) policy commitments regarding agrarian reform and agricultural property with respect to the ongoing debate on the expropriation of land without compensation.

Ordinary bank clients are seldom legally successful against the giant banks to which they entrust their money, even when the banks make terrible mistakes. That’s why the Namibian case of Faida Trading has intrigued legal writer Carmel Rickard. In her A Matter of Justice column on the Legalbrief site, she wonders what caused Nedbank to resort to what looks to her like bullying tactics rather than owning up to an awful and unexplained error by their staff. In the end the judge slammed the bank for being ‘unreasonable’, ‘obdurate’ and ‘brazingly negligent’ – but the customer was put through the wringer in getting there.

A landmark case to decide how banks should deal with home repossessions will be heard on 28 and 29 August in the South Gauteng High Court.

Court papers filed in the Western Cape High Court last week by University of Stellenbosch’s Law Clinic and Summit Financial Partners make for disturbing reading. They are asking the court to stop creditors from loading unlawful costs onto the accounts of distressed debtors, which they reckon has cost debtors R1 billion in unlawful fees. 

People Against Petrol and Paraffin Price Increases (Papppi), headed by Visvin Reddy, is calling for a 35% drop in fuel prices. Did you know that 38% of what you pay at the pump goes to levies and taxes? And that nearly R2 goes to the bankrupt and corrupted Road Accident Fund? Reddy has had enough. He put out a video stating his case for a fuel price reduction and it got 500,000 hits. Just as Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) has thrown a crowbar into e-tolls, so may Papppi bring enough social pressure on government to rein in this runaway train.