ABSA bank auctions a lady's house for R1000
SUNDAY, 12 AUGUST 2012 18:52 SME NEWS DESK
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NO HOME, IN DEBT CELINA MAKHWAHIBA. PICTURE: THAPELO MOREBUDI
A young single mother’s dream of owning her own house turned into a nightmare when the bank repossessed the property and sold it for a mere R1000. R1000 for a house! Yes you read right, one thousand rands and zero cents
DE WET POTGIETER | THE NEW AGE
Celina Makhwayiba, a data capturer at Assupol Life in Johannesburg, tried in vain to find out from Absa how it was possible that the house she had bought for R195000 was sold for such a low price. “I can’t even buy an empty stand for such a laughable price,” Makhwayiba told The New Age this week.
Absa now demands that she pays the balance of the money plus interest back to them.
“I’m financially ruined and I need answers from them,” she said. She only found out that the property was sold for such a low price when she discovered she was blacklisted.
Makhwayiba’s sad story started three years back when she decided to buy her first house in Delft in Cape Town and Absa in Tyger Valley granted her a bond for R195000.
Before she moved in she discovered that the house was in a bad shape and she requested Absa to fix it, but the bank said she had to take out another loan to fix the damages herself.
“I thought Absa would advise and assist me, but they only insisted that I pay back the bond,” Makhwayiba said.
She then asked Absa to take back the property because she couldn’t afford to fix the house on her salary.
She also wanted to know from Absa how was it possible for them to grant her a bond without checking the quality of the property, but to no avail.
Makhwayiba moved to Gauteng last year and changed to another bank when she saw that Absa had deducted a monthly amount of R2600 from her account for six months.
“I never heard from them again until I discovered I was blacklisted,” said Makhwayiba.
Earlier this year, Absa wrote a letter to her saying that the property was attached in May 2010 and it was sold three months later.
“The proceeds of the sale did not settle the full outstanding balance and you incurred the shortfall balance of R268 239.98 which you remain liable for the payment of,” Abda’s Lindiwe Rantsane told Makhwayiba. She is the ombudsman liaison officer for retail bank collections.
It was only in follow-up email correspondence that Makhwayiba finally managed to get an answer from Absa about the price that her house was sold for.
“The records indicate that the property was sold for R1000.00 on August 27, 2010 (the net realisable value was set at R1000.00),” Absa responded in an email to her.
“It’s impossible. It doesn’t make any sense for a house of R195000 to be sold for 1000,” Makhwayiba mailed back to Absa. She didn’t get an answer.
Absa spokesperson Patrick Wadula on Wednesday confirmed to The New Age that he received a list of questions regarding Makhwayiba’s plight and had passed it on to the customer complaints section for comment. After two days, The New Age has not received a reply.
