A Landslide Disaster

Mossel Bay homeowners sue authorities over wrecked homes

- Susan Puren

SIXTY-TWO OWNERS of properties in what used to be upmarket residential developments in Mossel Bay will soon be heading to court, claiming R200 million in damages from the Premier of the Western Cape and from the Mossel Bay Municipality. A third respondent is the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC)

In September 2016 the Mossel Bay Municipality told residents of Seemeeupark, Seemeeuvlug and Tuscan Village in Hartenbos that they had seven days to evacuate their properties after huge cracks had started to appear in buildings and roads in the area the previous year.

And soon after they had moved out, the municipality added insult to injury by ordering several owners to demolish their newly-built houses and a townhouse complex at their own expense.

The dwellings had been built near the N2 highway on land that was part of an old gravel quarry that had been excavated years ago on the side of a hill. In 2015 the ground began to slip downhill at a rate of several millimetres per day.

Needless to say the disaster was devastating for affected residents who suffered severe emotional stress and huge financial loss. Many were pensioners who literally had nowhere else to go and found themselves on the streets. Properties bought for cash were in some cases not insured, others battled to get their insurers to pay because the smallprint in their policies excluded subsidence.