Under South African sectional title law, balconies are considered common property, but with an important nuance:
Legal Position
Common property by default:
In the Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act (STSMA), anything outside the median line of the walls, floors, and ceilings of a section (unit) is deemed common property. This includes external walls, roofs, and balconies.
Balcony exclusive use rights:
Individual owners have them as exclusive-use areas, even though they are common property. This means the owner has the right to use them, but the body corporate retains ownership.
Balcony maintenance responsibility:
Unless the scheme rules specify otherwise, the body corporate is responsible for maintaining common property. However, the owner may be responsible for the maintenance costs.
Why are an NHBRC Enrolment and an Occupancy Certificate Important for New Homeowners in South Africa
The two most important documents a new homeowner should have are an NHBRC Residential Unit Enrolment Certificate and a Certificate of Occupancy because they confirm that the building meets the national safety standards and regulations.
NHBRC Residential Unit Enrolment Certificate and an Occupancy Certificate Legal Requirements
The National Building Regulations and Building Standards Act sets the standards for the construction and maintenance of buildings. South African law mandates that any new residential structure must be registered with the NHBRC before construction commences and have an Occupancy Certificate on completion before it can be legally occupied.
NHBRC Residential Unit Enrolment Certificates and Occupancy Certificates ensure Safety Compliance
Every new house must be registered with the NHBRC before the start of construction. The NHBRC mandate is to protect housing consumers and ensure builders comply with the prescribed building industry standards. They aim to assist and protect housing consumers from unscrupulous home builders who deliver substandard houses, bad workmanship and poor quality materials. NHBRC inspectors assess aspects like the foundation, structure and roofing to ensure they comply with safety and building standards.
The primary purpose of the Occupancy Certificate is to confirm that the building is safe for habitation. This includes structural safety, electrical safety, proper plumbing, and fire safety measures. Municipal inspectors assess aspects like the foundation, roofing, electrical wiring, water supply, and sanitation systems to ensure they comply with safety standards.
Limited Scope Home Inspections or single-system home inspections concentrate specifically on the systems and components required by the client.
Limited Scope Home Inspections (also known as single-system home inspections) are a targeted assessment focusing on specific areas, components, or systems of a property or object. Unlike a comprehensive home inspection, which evaluates all aspects of the property. This type of inspection is tailored to the client’s specific needs.
The term “limited scope” focuses on specific concerns of the buyer, seller, or homeowner, on one or more systems or elements of the property, rather than the entire home. The client provides a list of specific systems and components beforehand. This ensures clarity about what will be (and won’t be) inspected. For example, in a home inspection context, a client might request an inspection of only the roofing system and plumbing. For example, this would then exclude unrelated aspects, such as electrical systems or HVAC units.
Benefits of Limited Scope Home Inspections
These inspections are beneficial in scenarios where:
Buyers or owners might have identified potential issues they want to investigate further.
They cost less than a full inspection because of the limited scope.
The reports are completed faster than for comprehensive home inspections.
What are the limitations of this type of home inspection?
It’s important to note that while these types of inspections offer valuable insights, they have limitations. Significant problems may go uninspected without a broader evaluation.
To ensure reliability, always hire a qualified certified home inspector with expertise in the specified areas. Request a detailed report outlining findings, as this documentation can guide decision-making, whether you’re negotiating a real estate deal, making repairs, or simply gaining peace of mind.
Ultimately, a Limited Scope Home Inspection is an efficient and cost-effective tool for addressing specific concerns without committing to a full-scale evaluation.
The 2021 SANS 10400-XA revision requires the construction of cavity walls in place of 230 mm solid brick external walls. This energy-saving change is applicable in all the energy zones in South Africa except in zones 3, 5 and 5H.
How wise this course of action is considering the lack of skills in the building trade will have to be seen!
What is a cavity wall?
A cavity wall consists of two skins separated by a hollow space (cavity). The advantage is that a cavity wall gives better thermal insulation than a solid wall. The space between the two leaves of cavity walls reduces heat transmission into the building from outside.
The following are the advantages of cavity walls when compared to solid walls.
This type of wall gives better thermal insulation than solid walls.
The hollow space between leaves prevents moisture penetration through the wall from the outside. This prevents dampness internally.
They also act as good sound insulators.
These walls also prevent efflorescence from occurring.
Construction of cavity walls
The construction of these walls is technically more difficult than for solid 230 mm walls.
The cavity between the two masonry leaves should be a minimum of 50 mm. The gap must be consistent from the bottom of the wall to the top.
Below the DPC level, the bricklayer must fill up the wall cavity with concrete or mortar before installing the DPC.
The bricklayer then installs the DPC at slab level to step down from the slab-level interior wall across the cavity to the outer wall and weep holes. Its purpose is to drain away any water in the cavity towards the weep holes to discharge it outside.
Weep holes must be provided in the external leaf above the Damp Proof Course (DPC) at every 4th brick horizontally.
The bricklayer must build in wall ties at every 5th course of brickwork vertically and space them horizontally at every second brick to tie the two leaves of brickwork together.
Mortar dropping down in the cavity can stop water from draining away. The bricklayer should leave some bricks out temporarily at the DPC level to clear mortar droppings at the end of each day’s work.
The normal method of preventing mortar droppings from falling to the base of the cavity is to use a cloth-rapped batten (38 x 38 mm) or specially sized 50 x 38 mm planed to 45 mm. The bricklayer places the batten on the wall ties while building the wall. The bricklayer raises the batten, using wire tied to its ends and then positions it on the next row of ties.
Furthermore, the bricklayer should install a vertical DPC on the sides of doors and windows when closing off the cavity wall. This is to prevent water from driving to the inner face.
In addition, the bricklayer should install a layer of DPC and weep holes in the cavity above exposed doors and windows similar to the DPC at floor level. This is to prevent moisture from penetrating the inner leaf.
At the roof line, the bricklayer should fill or brick up the cavity for two or three courses below the roofline to stiffen and distribute the load over both leaves. He should also build in roof ties at this level to tie down the roof trusses or beams.
No wide brick force can be used to span both leaves and cavities of brickwork. A 90 mm width of brickforce will need to be used on every 5th layer of brickwork on both leaves up to window or door height and every course above that until the cavity is closed at roof height.
My Concernswith the new requirements
The Western Cape Province has already been following this practice for many years. Cavity walls are also better for damp prevention than solid walls. The introduction of cavity walls nationally is to satisfy regulatory requirements for building energy efficiency.
However, such sweeping changes to the construction of brick buildings in other areas of the country may have serious consequences because of skills shortages. They may lead or may have led to substandard work because of the lack of sufficient skills and training of bricklayers and their supervisors!
The newer generation of bricklayers and builders never adhered fully to the requirements of the building regulations before with the construction of solid 230 mm walls! Most of them have had no experience with building cavity walls either!
I have listed some of the issues I have seen on building sites below:
In my experience, the bricklayers in the building trade never used collar jointing of the solid brick walls leading to weakened wall structures.
The bricklayers seldom place the DPC on a half layer of mortar on the brickwork. Instead, they place the DPC directly on the brickwork. This often led to moisture intrusion in the structure at the DPC level.
Generally, no bricklayer has installed DPC on the sides or above the door and window openings to prevent moisture intrusion through the wall at the windows and doors inland from the coastal areas.
Few bricklayers build in the correct number of layers of brickforce reinforcing above windows and doors.
Often, the bricklayers tooth the brickwork of the internal walls to external walls and corners instead of stepping back the brickwork as required.
The mixing of large amounts of mortar resulting in the retempering (adding additional water) of mortar is a common practice. This causes weakened mortar and brickwork.
Most of the issues result from a lack of knowledge and training. This includes not only the bricklayers but also the supervisors!
So how do we get the bricklayers to build the more technical cavity walls correctly?
One way is to train the supervisors who in turn can train the bricklayers!
Various brick associations and training schools offer bricklaying training. The various training associations and schools may be open to do on-site training.
Articles by the Clay Brick Association can update supervisors and bricklayers with the technicalities of building a cavity wall.
Let us hope the above happens so that new homeowners will have properly constructed homes!
Conclusion
With the correct training, newly built cavity walls will provide the thermal benefit required by the new revision of SANS 10400-XA. In addition, the construction of cavity walls will minimise moisture intrusion into new buildings if constructed properly. They also provide sound insulation benefits.
A buyer, a seller or an estate agent blames the house and the home inspector when a house sale falls through! Why?
A buyer may cancel a transaction after a home inspection! Sellers and agents may be tempted to blame an overzealous home inspector when a transaction falls apart after the inspection of some houses.
But there’s more to that situation than meets the eye.
Estate professionals know there are many ways that deals can fall apart, from credit, and financing to plain cold feet. But certainly, one of the more common deal killers is the home inspection.
But it doesn’t have to be!
Houses and Home Inspectors Do Not Kill Deals
Four home inspection situations lead to a cancelled transaction. Two things which are not on this list are the house and the home inspector. Some estate agents blame the home or the home inspector. However, let’s consider what happens in these situations.
Problems are caused when the home inspection report significantly alters the buyer’s expectations about what they thought they were buying. The client may say, “Gee, I thought I was buying a well-maintained home, but now that we have looked closely, I see the house requires a lot more maintenance than we expected”.
Therefore, the cancellation has everything to do with the client’s expectations coming into the inspection! Agents may wish that the home inspector had been less forthcoming about the condition of the house but this is not the solution! The solution to this problem is for buyers to have more realistic expectations before they sign the contract. My website and blog attempt to teach people skills that will help them look at houses and evaluate risk so they are more prepared to make an offer on the right house.
Here are the top four reasons buyers cancel a deal after the inspection.
1) Unprepared buyers
There are no classes in university or high school to teach people how houses work or where the risk lies. Even professional estate agents have little or no training to help them understand how to look at houses and identify issues. A new generation of homebuyers, many of whom did not grow up working on their houses with their parents, compounds this problem.
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