Estate Dispute Over Short-Term Rentals

A lengthy legal battle between property owners in Hoedspruit’s Zandspruit Bush and Aero Estate over short-term holiday rentals has been dismissed by the Limpopo High Court, with the court ruling that changes in municipal zoning regulations rendered the dispute academic.

Martin Gert den Dunnen and Gideon Johannes van der Ploeg, residents of the estate, had sought to prohibit rentals shorter than one month, as they argued that such arrangements violated the Maruleng Land-use Scheme of 2008. However, their application, filed in July 2019, was overtaken by events when a new municipal scheme came into effect in November 2021.

The dispute originated in September 2017 when Maruleng Municipality wrote to the Zandspruit Estate Homeowners Association demanding disclosure of lodge establishments and short-term rental activities. The municipality warned of penalties for non-disclosure of what it termed “non-residential illegal activities” and gave residents until the end of that month to come forward.

In response, the homeowners association (HOA) initially enforced its existing Rule 13.1, which prohibited leases shorter than one month. Members were given until December 2017 to honour pre-existing bookings before the ban would take full effect, and were instructed to remove accommodation advertisements from websites.

However, the restriction proved contentious among estate members. In December 2018, the association’s members voted by majority to replace the prohibition with a new Rule 12, which permitted short-term rentals with significant conditions. Under the amended rules, property owners could host non-family visitors for a minimum of seven days, with a maximum of 20 such visits per year. Owners remained fully responsible for tax consequences and liable for any legal challenges regarding rental legality.

Den Dunnen and Van der Ploeg challenged this rule change and sought court orders to declare it unlawful and reinstate the one-month minimum rental period. They argued that the estate’s “Rural Residential” zoning under the 2008 scheme prohibited such short-term lettings.

The HOA raised several preliminary objections, including that other estate members should have been joined to the case, that the Community Schemes Ombudsman should have been involved, and that the applicants had failed to comply with requirements under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act. Crucially, the association also argued that the entire application had become moot because the Maruleng Land Use Scheme of 2021 had replaced the 2008 scheme on which the applicants based their case. The court found this final point decisive.

Despite the applicants’ assertion that the new scheme had adopted the provisions of its predecessor, the court noted this assumption could not be made without proper evidence. The applicants had relied exclusively on the 2008 scheme in their papers, even though by the time final arguments were heard in November 2024, the new scheme had been in force for three years.

Applying established legal principles, the court ruled that the matter no longer presented a dispute or live controversy between the parties. Any ruling on the defunct 2008 scheme would have no practical effect or enforcement. The court also observed that the Community Schemes Ombud Service provided an alternative avenue for resolving such disputes between HOA members. Since one requirement for a final interdict is that no other satisfactory remedy exists, this further undermined the applicants’ case.

You can read the full Den Dunnen v Zandspruit judgement here.