Property Search – City of Johannesburg
Information about any registered property in South Africa incl Price Paid, Registered Bond Amount and Sale History.
Generally we need either the Township & Erf Number, Street Address
Our reports are easy to understand and interpret but sometimes Deeds Office information are not that obvious. The article aims to exlain our Property Search Report in more detail.
There are various types of properties registered at the Deeds Office. They are:
- Freehold Properties – A freestanding property with a unique Erf Number, Portion Number and Township.
- Sectional Schemes – A sectional scheme is usually a complex. A complex consists of a number of Units which uniquely identify the property. Sometimes Door Numbers are used (i.e. 2A). The Deeds Office does not register sectional schemes by Door Number but by Unit Number.
- Farms – A farm is classified by a Registration Division (JR, IR etc), Farm Number and Portion Number.
- Agricultural Holdings – Agricultural Holdings are classified by a Holding Name and Holding Number.
- Clusters / Estates – This is most common in Gauteng. The Deeds Office does not know anything about these types of properties. They are registered as Freehold Properties.
PROPERTY INFORMATION
This section contains information about the property. The Portion, Erf and Township are the most important aspects of a property as this uniquely identifies the property.
- Property Type – Refer to the Property Types section above.
- Erf Number – The unique erf number of the property. An erf number is unique for a Township i.e. only one erf number per township.
- Portion Number – If an erf has been subdivided (cut into smaller pieces) the each piece gets assigned a portion.
- Township – This is the Township this property is located in.
Note: A Township is not the same as a Suburb. The Deeds Office do not register properties according to suburb. There is no official database for suburbs so the township is more important than the suburb. - Scheme Name – The name of the sectional scheme (in the case of a sectional scheme search).
- Unit Number – The unit number of the sectional scheme.
Note: The Unit Number is not necessarily the Door Number. It might be unit 103 but door number 3A. - Diagram Deed – This is the original deed when the property was first registered. It is seldom requested and used mainly for reference.
- Extent – This is the size of the property. Usually it is in square metres (SQM) but can be in DUM which is the old imperial measurement.
- Local Authority – The local authority (or municipality) that the property is in.
- Reg Division – This is the Registration Division usually used for farms. For freehold properties and sectional schemes this is used as reference to the registration division of the original farm.
- Province – The province that the property is located in.
- Street Address – This information is not strictly kept at the Deeds Office and obtained from another source. There is no central database of street addresses in South Africa. This is only for reference and should not be used to identify the property (it is more accurate to use portion, erf and township).
- LPI Code – This is the unique Surveyor General code for the property used mainly for mapping purposes.
OWNERS
This section displays all the information for the owners of the property.
- Person Type – This is the type of person (Private, Company, Trust, State etc).
- Person Name – The full names of the owner.
- ID Number – The ID Number (or company registration number) of the owner.
- Share – The % share of ownership. If a person owns 50% of the property then is will be shown as 0.5.
- Multiple Properties – This indicates whether the owner owns multiple properties.
- Multiple Owners – This indicates whether the property is owned by multiple owners.
- Title Deed – The Title Deed Number for the title deed document that is registered at the Deeds Office when the property was transferred to the current owner.
- Purchase Date – The date the property was purchased (i.e. offer to purchase signed and accepted).
- Purchase Price – The price paid for the property. Sometimes you will get a CSR or UNKNOWN. In these cases you will need to order the copy of the title deed document to get more information.
- Registration Date – This is also known as the Transfer Date. This is the date that the property is registered at the Deeds Office / Transferred to the new owners.
- Microfilm Reference – This is the unique microfilm reference for the document. Title Deed documents are microfilmed (and scanned) for archiving purposes. When ordering a copy of a document the microfilm reference is used to retrieve the document. If no microfilm reference is available then the document is manually requested (also a service provided by mydeedsearch) from the Deeds Office.
ENDORSEMENTS
These are restrictions on a specific property. An endorsement can be a bond, interdict, mineral rights or any other restriction imposed on a property. Bonds, Interdicts and Mineral Rights are the most common endorsements for a property.
- Owner – This is the owner of the endorsement. In the case of a Bond this will generally be the bank i.e. ABSA, Standard Bank, SA Home Loans etc.
- Amount / Price – The amount of the endorsement. In the case of a bond this will be the registered bond amount.
Note: This amount is the amount registered and not necessarily the outstanding amount. There is no way (apart from contacting the bank) to find out what the outstanding amount on a bond is. - Document – The unique number for the document. This number is unique per Deeds Office.
- Microfilm Reference – Refer to Microfilm Reference in the Owners section of this document.
- Description – Type of endorsement (i.e. Interdict, Bond etc).
HISTORY
This section contains a history of transactions for the property. This can be transfers (sale of the property), bonds (registration of a bond) or any other transaction against the property. The same information as for Endorsements is contained in this section.
A wealth of information is available at the Deeds Office including property information. As the Deeds Office is the custodian of all property transfers in South Africa, it also contains all the information about a specific property. There are providers and systems out there that try to “mimick” the Deeds Office system by providing “offline” searches or searches from their own database. In the end, the Deeds Office is the only place where the most current information about a property can be obtained.
A Property Search provides you with the ability to draw information on an erf, township, sectional scheme, farm or registration division by providing the name as well as the Erf, Farm or Scheme number to the South African Deeds Registry.
Doing a property search via our website allows you to get information direct from the Deeds Office without the hassle of physically going there or registering for access via other providers. You don’t need to know how the Deeds Office works and what information is required to search for a property. We will do all the legwork for you.
A typical Deeds Office property search will contain information like:
- Owner Details (incl full names, ID Number, percentage share owned, price paid, last sale date, registration date).
- Property Details.
- Registered Bond Amount (this is the bond amount registered against the property and not necessarily the outstanding bond amount).
- Any interdicts or mineral rights or other restrictions registered against the property.
- Property transfer history.
This information is vital for anyone interested in buying the property, debt collection companies, tracing agents or anyone interested in the details of a property.