Class action against banks: A fight for justice in home repossession cases

AFTER years of preparation by lawyers acting for hundreds of people who claimed that their homes were unfairly repossessed, the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, will on Tuesday (February 24) hear arguments to have a R60 billion class action against major banks certified.

- ZELDA VENTER

While these claimants are pinning their hopes on the class action to be certified by Judge Leonie Windell, the major banks cited as respondents will ask the court to turn down the certification application.

The certification action was instituted six years ago against four of the country's major banks and other bodies. Their case is that the banks sold their properties for amounts substantially less than their market value, or not as a test resort. They said that on this basis, the banks are liable for the losses they have suffered as a result.

Advocate Douglas Shaw, who is fighting for the class action, will argue that this is a case in delict primarily about damages “to the tens of thousands of people whose houses have been sold in execution for very little”. This, he said, when other alternatives were available and where the banks “have known about these injustices for decades and have not changed their mode of operation”.