Your tenants stop paying rental, but stubbornly refuse to vacate whilst you must keep on shelling out for bond instalments, rates, repairs and municipal services. The temptation grows - cut off their electricity and water, stop them freeloading off you, get them out so you can re-let to better tenants.

A recent High Court decision demonstrates once again why taking the law into your own hands like that is playing with fire. We’ll end with a note on why your lease should always be in writing, clear and comprehensive. 

Taking advantage of an employer’s sick leave policy may seem to some employees like a fun game to play, but beware – it can backfire badly!

The profitability of your business, even perhaps its survival, could depend on how effectively you collect from your debtors. So, when a recalcitrant debtor starts giving you the runaround and doesn’t respond to polite requests for payment, you should think of going the legal route.

Although specific legal assistance is always the best way to maximise your chances of a successful recovery, the process needn’t be complicated. We’ll discuss two possible strategies - a “typical” debt collection process, and a “dynamite” alternative.

“Fictional fulfilment”

You may come across this term in contractual disputes, where one of the parties deliberately prevents fulfilment of a suspensive condition in order to escape the sale. With property sales, it usually relates to the “bond clause”, where the whole sale is “suspended” until the buyer is granted a bond. The buyer gets cold feet and intentionally frustrates the granting of a bond. In appropriate circumstances, a court can then “deem” the condition to have been fulfilled through the old legal doctrine of “fictional fulfilment of a suspensive condition”.