Housing eviction Violates Tenant’s Rights

THE following happened to me in Feb-March 2007 and should serve as a warning to all those who rely on the law to protect them against the violation of their citizens’ rights.

Since at this stage I don’t know whether I shall take the matter further (probably a futile exercise), I am at this stage providing the real names only to the newspaper. When I returned from my summer holiday to my town in the north of Namibia, I got the news (via the grapevine) that my block of flats was being sold.Since none of the tenants had received any notice to that effect, and even though some of them had already moved out in anticipation of ‘trouble’, I decided to take things calmly, relying on the law which states that tenants must get at least a month’s notice if not more.In the meantime I started looking around for a suitable alternative place to live, but at that stage found nothing that suited my (not very big) pocket.When I finally met the new owner of my building, a prominent businessman from Windhoek, he and I came to a friendly agreement, namely that I should temporarily move into the empty flat adjoining mine, where I could stay on until all the flats had been renovated, at which time I could decide whether to move back into my old flat at a somewhat higher rent (which at that stage was not yet decided on) or move somewhere else.(I had to take a day off work to move into the adjoining flat.) On February 20, one week before month’s end, I received a phone call from the new owner’s sister who works in my town, informing me that I had the choice whether to move out by 28 February or pay the new rent – which was three times the old amount.Insisting on my rights under the tenant law, I protested, telling her that I would consult a lawyer about this.I then went to see her at her workplace and asked for a written statement – which I received the next day, addressed, however, to a completely wrong name.This was the first written communication I had ever received about the whole matter (including the sale of the building etc.) and it wasn’t even addressed to my person! (As for the original owner: It later emerged that his secretary had neglected to inform his tenants of the planned sale of the building.) I took this written one-week’s notice to a lawyer and asked him to inform this lady in writing of my intention to stay on in the flat till 5 March as, firstly, such short notice was against the law, and secondly, I needed enough time to move out without having to take off from work again.Luckily, in the nick of time, I had found another small and affordable place to move to.However, in the evening of 2 March the lady came to my flat and demanded the keys to ‘her’ flat.When, with reference to the lawyer’s letter she had been sent, I refused to surrender the keys to her, she in turn refused to leave.I thereupon phoned my lawyer, who came out and in vain tried to convince her of the fact that she was trespassing and to persuade her to leave; she would not budge, saying that ‘her people’ were in power now and that therefore we could do nothing.In the meantime I had phoned some friends of mine, who also got the Police, but all their attempts at talking sense into her were also in vain; the lady stayed put.The Police maintained that before they could act they had to get orders from their supervisor, who in turn refused to come out to the scene.Finally, at about 9 pm, the lady phoned one of her workers, who came and took off the doors to the flat, carried them off and locked them away in a storeroom.Then she left triumphantly.There I was, in the middle of the night, stranded outside a wide-open flat that I could neither stay in nor leave.I had never felt so shocked, helpless and humiliated in my life.After a lengthy debate with the Police (who still did not act) and my friends, it was decided to ask one of the previous owner’s workers, who still lived in an outbuilding, to sleep in my flat while I spent the night at my friends’ house.The next day I formally reported the matter at the Police station.Since the person taking the statement was extremely slow (as is generally the case at that Police station), I gave her my original written statement (of which I had made a copy) to copy, telling her that I would return to sign her statement later.While I was moving out of the flat, one of the policemen from the previous evening came to inform me that the supervisor had decided not to do anything further about the matter.He also told me that the new owner/s of the building was/were part of a powerful new business group with property all over the country.When later I returned to the Police station to sign the statement, all there was of my 1œ pages was about 20 lines, and when I asked for my case number I was told I “didn’t have a case”.I nevertheless insisted on a ‘statement number’, which I eventually got.All this has shown me and all who witnessed this drama that the laws of this country are no longer worth the paper they are written on, and it has reinforced the long-known fact that the Police, once ‘your trusted friend and helper’, can no longer be relied on for assistance.Shocked Citizen Via e-mail Note: Name and address provided – EdWhen I returned from my summer holiday to my town in the north of Namibia, I got the news (via the grapevine) that my block of flats was being sold.Since none of the tenants had received any notice to that effect, and even though some of them had already moved out in anticipation of ‘trouble’, I decided to take things calmly, relying on the law which states that tenants must get at least a month’s notice if not more.In the meantime I started looking around for a suitable alternative place to live, but at that stage found nothing that suited my (not very big) pocket.When I finally met the new owner of my building, a prominent businessman from Windhoek, he and I came to a friendly agreement, namely that I should temporarily move into the empty flat adjoining mine, where I could stay on until all the flats had been renovated, at which time I could decide whether to move back into my old flat at a somewhat higher rent (which at that stage was not yet decided on) or move somewhere else.(I had to take a day off work to move into the adjoining flat.) On February 20, one week before month’s end, I received a phone call from the new owner’s sister who works in my town, informing me that I had the choice whether to move out by 28 February or pay the new rent – which was three times the old amount.Insisting on my rights under the tenant law, I protested, telling her that I would consult a lawyer about this.I then went to see her at her workplace and asked for a written statement – which I received the next day, addressed, however, to a completely wrong name.This was the first written communication I had ever received about the whole matter (including the sale of the building etc.) and it wasn’t even addressed to my person! (As for the original owner: It later emerged that his secretary had neglected to inform his tenants of the planned sale of the building.) I took this written one-week’s notice to a lawyer and asked him to inform this lady in writing of my intention to stay on in the flat till 5 March as, firstly, such short notice was against the law, and secondly, I needed enough time to move out without having to take off from work again.Luckily, in the nick of time, I had found another small and affordable place to move to.However, in the evening of 2 March the lady came to my flat and demanded the keys to ‘her’ flat.When, with reference to the lawyer’s letter she had been sent, I refused to surrender the keys to her, she in turn refused to leave.I thereupon phoned my lawyer, who came out and in vain tried to convince her of the fact that she was trespassing and to persuade her to leave; she would not budge, saying that ‘her people’ were in power now and that therefore we could do nothing.In the meantime I had phoned some friends of mine, who also got the Police, but all their attempts at talking sense into her were also in vain; the lady stayed put.The Police maintained that before they could act they had to get orders from their supervisor, who in turn refused to come out to the scene.Finally, at about 9 pm, the lady phoned one of her workers, who came and took off the doors to the flat, carried them off and locked them away in a storeroom.Then she left triumphantly.There I was, in the middle of the night, stranded outside a wide-open flat that I could neither stay in nor leave.I had never felt so shocked, helpless and humiliated in my life.After a lengthy debate with the Police (who still did not act) and my friends, it was decided to ask one of the previous owner’s workers, who still lived in an outbuilding, to sleep in my flat while I spent the night at my friends’ house.The next day I formally reported the matter at the Police station.Since the person taking the statement was extremely slow (as is generally the case at that Police station), I gave her my original written statement (of which I had made a copy) to copy, telling her that I would return to sign her statement later.While I was moving out of the flat, one of the policemen from the previous evening came to inform me that the supervisor had decided not to do anything further about the matter.He also told me that the new owner/s of the building was/were part of a powerful new business group with property all over the country.When later I returned to the Police station to sign the statement, all there was of my 1œ pages was about 20 lines, and when I asked for my case number I was told I “didn’t have a case”.I nevertheless insisted on a ‘statement number’, which I eventually got.All this has shown me and all who witnessed this drama that the laws of this country are no longer worth the paper they are written on, and it has reinforced the long-known fact that the Police, once ‘your trusted friend and helper’, can no longer be relied on for assistance.Shocked Citizen Via e-mail Note: Name and address provided – Ed