A brief look at the conditions for township establishment

1) The owner must get consent to establish a township from the council/local authority in whose jurisdiction the property is situated, in line with their conditions of township establishment. This entails the following:

• The owner must apply to open a township, and their application must include plans for the township.
• The local authority will give notice of the application by publishing a notice to that effect, once a week for two consecutive weeks.
• The application will then be forwarded to the relevant roads department, anyone providing engineering services, and any other local government department that may be an interested party.
• These departments or bodies may comment in writing within 60 days.
• Anyone may lodge an objection within 28 days of publication of the notice of application.
• All objections will be forwarded to the owner.
• The local authority will then investigate the objections and, in certain instances, a tribunal will be called to adjudicate thereon.
• Once all conditions have been met and the payment of any fees has been made, the council will issue a notice of approval.
  

2) Once the application has been approved, the owner has 12 months to register plans and diagrams with the Surveyor General.

3) Once these have been approved, the plans, diagrams, and proclamation notice must be lodged with the Registrar of Deeds within 12 months, together with an application for the opening of the township register and registration of the general plan.

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Written by Wessel de Kock

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