Issued by: Department of Land Affairs
COMMUNAL PROPERTY ASSOCIATIONS ACT ACCEPTED
The Communal Property Associations Act, Act 28 of 1996, was signed by President Nelson Mandela shortly before his departure to Germany.
The Act makes provision for the creation of a legal entity called a Communal Property Association. Communal land can be registered in the name of a Communal Property Association (CPA) which will consist of members and have a constitution complying with the democratic standards of the Bill of Rights.
The Communal Property Association Act enables members of disadvantaged and poor communities to collectively acquire, hold and manage property. The Act was designed to provide a relatively simple and accessible mechanism through which group ownership systems can be recognised.
In order to qualify for the benefits of this Act through registration as a CPA, communal property associations must conform to certain basic public standards for fair process, democratic accountability and equality. The Act accordingly provides a substantive framework to facilitate the formation and registration of this new form of juristic person.
A Registration Officer is to review the constituting documents of any community wishing to register an association in terms of this Act to ensure consistency with the principles laid down in the Act. The Registration Officer's function is not to make rules for communities, but to ensure that the constitutions they submit conform to constitutionally entrenched standards of equality, fairness and due process. This is necessary to protect ordinary members from discriminatory practices and abuses of power.
The Department of Land Affairs is committed to a land policy which provides for security of tenure under a variety of forms of tenure. Individual ownership has been well supported in the past both in terms of legal theory and infrastructure such as the deeds office. It is the intention of government to ensure that other forms of tenure, including communal tenure, receive the same legal and infrastructural support as individual tenure. The Act represents a first step in that direction by providing an accessible means of recording and registering rights in property.
Many people in this country hold land through communal systems, whether in the urban or rural context. Group ownership is preferred in many communities because of the social and economic functions it fulfills.
It has, for example, always been easier for people to raise the cash necessary to acquire land through group contribution schemes. Yet the law has up till now, never provided for simple and appropriate forms of group ownership - and many group ownership systems have come to exist informally and outside the law, where people participating therein are continuously vulnerable to eviction.
The Communal Property Associations Act is one of four pieces of legislation aimed at giving effect to government and the Department of Land Affairs' commitment of providing security of tenure. The others are the Land Reform Labour Tenants Act, the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Bill and the Upgrading of Land Tenure Rights Amendment Bill, which are almost through the Parliamentary process and are expected to be signed by the President within a month at the outside.
Issued by the Department of Land Affairs in Pretoria 23 May 1996
For further information please contact Jan Barnard at tel (012) 312-9555 or Norman Sekothlong at (012) 312-9568 or fax 012) 312-9128