Jonathan Hitchcock - Vhata Vas Hyah

He thought he could mess with me, eh?

Well, he didn't know that I have a blog!

Hah. That'll learn him.

Sent by registered mail:

To: Mr George Hegarty,

This letter serves to confirm my position with respect to the termination of the lease governing my residence at 12 Silverhill Crescent, Kenilworth, Cape Town, that we signed in April of 2007.

Clause 8 of the lease states the following:

         8. EARLY TERMINATION
         Resident may terminate this agreement before Expiration of the original term by:
         (a) Giving management at least one month's written notice to be effective only on the last day of a 
         given month; plus
         (b) Paying all monies due through date of termination; plus
         (c) Paying an amount equal to one month's Rent; plus
         (d) Returning residence in a clean, ready to rent condition;
         (e) Paying for advertising necessary to rent residence.

Accordingly, on the 30th of July, 2007, I gave you written notice stating that I wished to terminate the lease effective on the last day of August, 2007. You have accepted this notice, as per your letter to me on the 6th of August, 2007. As a result of this, the lease will terminate on the 31st of August, 2007, contingent on my fulfilling the rest of the conditions of the clause.

As stated in writing at the bottom of page 1 of our lease, I gave you R5000 in April 2007, which covers “the first and last months rent”. Since August 2007 is now the last month of the lease, it is covered by this money. The notice I received from you regarding money for electricity and water was fulfilled immediately, so there are no more monies due from me to you through 31st August 2007, the date of termination described above.

On the 13th of August, 2007, I transferred a sum of R3000 into your bank account, which constitutes “an amount equal to one month's rent” as described in part (c) above. In addition, on the 12th of August, 2007, I removed all of my belongings from the property, and cleaned the room, leaving it in the state in which I found it. I will refund an invoice for a reasonable standard rental housing advertisement if presented to me.

As described above, I believe that I have fulfilled my obligations according to the lease which we signed. However, on the 5th of August, 2007, you confiscated my keys and ordered me to remove my car from your property. As determined by the Rental Housing Tribunal on the 8th of August, 2007, this constituted an act of illegal lockout, and you were ordered to return my keys to me.

Shortly after this, I went out of town on holiday. When I returned, I came to the residence at 12 Silverhill Crescent to find that you had removed my bed and several other items of furniture from the room, and had gone through my belongings and dumped them on the floor of the room. This violates points 4(2) and 4(3) of the Rental Housing Act of 1999. In addition, there was a notice in my room stating that you would be charging me R25 per day for parking on the property, and a notice on the gate control instructing the other tenants of the house not to open the gate for me. These constitute illegal unilateral alterations to the agreement we had between us.

At this point, some friends and I attempted to remove some of my belongings from the property, and you ordered them, with much profanity and a raised voice, to leave the premises immediately, threatening to call the police if they did not comply. Since they were bona fide visitors of mine, this constitutes a violation of point 4(4) of the Rental Housing Act of 1999.

I will be in further communication with you as regards the events described above, but I consider my obligations under the lease to be fulfilled. Accordingly, I will require you to refund me my deposit of R3000, plus interest accrued, at the end of August 2007, as detailed in point 5 of the Rental Housing Act of 1999.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Hitchcock

The one loose end left (apart from the possible court case he claims he will bring against me) in the landlord story was the fact that the bed that Adeline's mother lent me was still there at the house. Once I had that off his property, all he has on me is my phone number. Okay, and my name and ID number. But I'm okay with those.

Being a big double bed, we couldn't get it out on Sunday night without a bakkie, so we left it there. He had removed it from my room (without permission, of course), wrapped it in plastic, and shoved it in a room outside the house. Last night, I went to the house with Mark Ter Morshuizen, a friend of mine from CLUG, who offered me the use of his bakkie on Tuesday night. (I tried to phone George twice before arriving, to formally ask permission to enter the property, but he ignored my calls. Ah well.)

On arrival, and with much trepidation, we went into the house, to find that only Jeffrey, George's worker, was home. Jeffrey and I are on fairly good terms, and he knew what I was there for, and was about to help me carry the bed out, when he paused and asked "You will leave the keys here after taking the bed?" I told him that I would return the keys when my tenancy was finished, namely at the end of the month. He did not seem at all happy about this - it was clear that George had given him strict instructions not to let the bed leave the property until he had my keys. He tried to tell me that I couldn't take the bed, but I just walked past him, found the keys to the outside room, and started removing the bed. Jeffrey tried to tell me I couldn't take it, and then tried to phone George to tell him what was happening. He wouldn't open the side gate for me, so Mark and I just hoisted the bed over the wall and carried it to the car.

Poor Jeffrey was in an anguish, and kept trying to beg me to leave the keys with him, clearly very worried about what would happen if I didn't. I said "Jeffrey, you know me?" and he said, yes, he did. I said, "Jeffrey, I promise you, I will bring the keys back. I live in the house until the end of August. If I don't return the keys at the end of August, I am illegal, and I will go to jail. I will bring them back." and I shook his hand. This seemed to cheer him up no end, and he even helped us tie the bed onto the roof of the bakkie, and find a missing leg that had fallen off. I then shook his hand again, and we left the house.

It was at this point that Mark turned to me and said "You can calm down now, it's over", and I realised what a state I was in. I had been practically frantic in my efforts to get the bed out of the house before George returned and started kicking up a fuss, and I didn't realise how out of breath and shaky I was. When I realised that the whole thing was basically over... Well, the relief was palpable.

We dropped the bed off at my new house, and I picked up my new set of keys, and I will move into the new place this evening. To summarise: Hurrah!