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Quick answer Both freehold homes and sectional title units are valued individually on the municipal valuation roll, and both owners have the same legal right to object to an inflated valuation. The differences lie in how value is assessed and what goes wrong: freehold valuations turn on land, improvements and condition, while sectional title valuations turn on the unit itself — its section size, exclusive-use areas, parking and position — where recording errors are common. Your levies are separate: the body corporate does not pay your rates, you do. |
Who pays the rates on a sectional title unit?
A common misconception is that rates on a flat or townhouse are 'in the levy'. They aren't. Since the Municipal Property Rates Act took effect, municipalities rate each sectional title unit individually: your section appears on the valuation roll with its own market value, and the municipality bills you, the owner, directly — separately from the levies you pay your body corporate for common-property expenses. That means an inflated valuation on your unit is your problem and your right to fix: the body corporate cannot object to your section's value for you, and your neighbours' objections don't help your entry.
How freehold and sectional title valuations differ
Freehold: land plus improvements
A freehold (full-title) home is valued as land and buildings together. The mass-appraisal model works off erf size, building size and type, suburb sales and aerial imagery. Typical errors: outdated improvement records (a demolished outbuilding, an unrenovated interior the model can't see), wrong erf extent, or suburb averaging that drags an unrenovated home up to renovated-neighbour prices.
Sectional title: the unit and its rights
A sectional title unit's value rests on the registered section (its floor area on the sectional plan), plus the rights that go with it — exclusive-use areas like gardens, balconies, storerooms, and parking bays. Typical errors: the wrong section size on the roll; parking or exclusive-use areas double-counted or attributed to the wrong unit; identical-on-paper units valued identically despite big differences in floor level, view, orientation or condition; and whole schemes valued off a handful of unrepresentative sales in the complex.
How the objection process compares
Legally, the process is identical: check the roll during the objection period advertised in the Section 49 notice, lodge the prescribed form against your specific property, attach evidence of true market value at the roll's valuation date, and appeal if needed. The practical differences are in the evidence:
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Freehold evidence leans on comparable house sales in the suburb, condition photographs, building plans and erf data.
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Sectional title evidence leans on sales of comparable units — ideally within the same scheme or directly comparable schemes — the sectional plan confirming section size and exclusive-use areas, and unit-specific factors (floor, view, condition) the model ignored.
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Both are strongest with a registered professional valuer's report translating those facts into a defensible market value.
One sectional-title advantage: because units in a scheme share so many attributes, a single valuation error often repeats across many units — if your value looks inflated, your fellow owners' probably are too, and each owner can object to their own entry in the same window.
Which objection service do you need?
Real Rates runs both residential product lines, priced identically from R2,000: the freehold objection service for full-title houses, and the sectional title objection service for flats, apartments and sectional townhouses. Both include the professional valuation report, all municipal paperwork, and end-to-end management through to a final, corrected value — with the same 99% success rate and money-back guarantee. If you're not sure which applies (some townhouse complexes are freehold within a homeowners' association, not sectional title), your title deed or rates bill settles it, or we'll confirm during the free assessment.
Frequently asked questions
Are rates included in sectional title levies?
No. Levies fund the body corporate's common expenses; municipal rates are billed directly to each unit's owner based on that unit's own value on the valuation roll. You can owe inflated rates even in a well-run scheme.
Can a body corporate object to unit valuations?
Objections must target a specific property entry, so each owner objects to their own unit. In practice, owners in a scheme often coordinate — the Act allows 'any other person' to lodge, and a professional firm can run multiple unit objections in parallel.
Why is my unit valued the same as a bigger or better one?
Mass appraisal frequently values units off the sectional plan and scheme-level sales, missing differences in floor, view, condition and exclusive-use areas — and sometimes simply recording the wrong section size. All of these are valid objection grounds.
Do freehold and sectional title pay different rates tariffs?
Both fall under the residential category in most rates policies, so the tariff is the same — the difference in bills comes from the valuation. That's why correcting an inflated value is the lever that matters.
Is a townhouse freehold or sectional title?
It can be either. If you own the land under a title deed within an HOA estate, it's freehold; if you own a section on a sectional plan with an undivided share of common property, it's sectional title. Your title deed, or the property description on your rates bill, tells you which.
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House or unit — if the value is inflated, we'll fix it Real Rates runs dedicated objection services for freehold homes and sectional title units, both from R2,000, both fully managed by registered professional valuers, both covered by our money-back guarantee. Find out free if you're overpaying at realrates.co.za. |
Disclaimer: This article is general information, not legal or financial advice. Deadlines and rebate rules differ between municipalities and change with each valuation cycle — always confirm the current position with your municipality or a registered professional valuer.