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President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed into law the Housing Consumer Protection Bill, which is geared at offering greater protection for housing consumers and support for new entrants in the home building industry.<\/p>\n
According to a statement by the Presidency, the law also seeks to address \u201cchallenges identified by the Department of Human Settlements and the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC), with regard to the Housing Consumers Protection Measures Act of 1998\u201d.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe new law seeks to ensure adequate protection of housing consumers and effective regulation of the home building industry by, inter alia, strengthening the regulatory mechanisms, strengthening the protection of housing consumers, introducing effective enforcement mechanisms and prescribing appropriate penalties or sanctions to deter non-compliance by homebuilders.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe law deals with such matters as the personal liability of the members, directors or trustees of a homebuilder; duties of estate agents, financial institutions and conveyancers, and codes of conduct for NHBRC members, homebuilders, developers and other industry role players,\u201d the Presidency said in a statement.<\/p>\n
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Furthermore, the new legislation will apply to professional home builders and owner-builders who are now \u201crequired to register with the registration council\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe law also introduces the enrolment of a home prior to the commencement of its construction by a homebuilder, consequences for failure to enrol a home, duties in respect of a subsidy housing project and consequences for failure by housing authorities or subsidy housing delivery agents to follow the law.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe law applies to repairs, renovations, alterations and extensions to an existing home under the NHBRC\u2019s regulatory regime,\u201d the statement read. The new Housing Consumer Protection also seeks to dismantle barriers to entrance into that market.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe law also seeks to address the economic transformation of the building industry through the introduction of provisions relating to the warranty fund surplus, which may be used for developmental programmes for the homebuilding industry. The fund is used primarily to remedy major structural defects reported by homeowners to homebuilders and the HBRC.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe law seeks to create an enabling environment for new entrants into the home building industry by introducing contractual provisions that ensure their sustainability in the market,\u201d the statement concluded. \u2013\u00a0SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed into law the Housing Consumer Protection Bill, which is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t