Municipal approval for the placing of estate agents’ advertisement/signs on properties for the public’s attention

Overview

There is some confusion as to whether the municipality’s approval should or should not be sought before the placing of “to let” or “for sale” signs on a property to attract the public's attention, and also how many such signs an estate agent may place on or outside any one property.

The Ethekwini Municipality is in the process of reviewing its by-laws and this issue may also be a subject of that review so that the requirements could change in the future.

Presently the Ethekwini By-laws do not require estate agents to apply for municipal approval before they place “to let” or “for sale” signs on properties.

However, in terms of these by-laws, such signs must be displayed in accordance with certain criteria laid down in the by-laws. Signs must be located within the boundaries of the premises that are being advertised for sale or for letting. Advertisements should not project beyond the boundary of the premises by more than 100 mm into the road reserve or street and must not exceed a size of 2m x 1,5m. If the advertisement relates to a dwelling house, it must not exceed 1,5m x 1m in size.

“Premises” means any building together with the land on which such building is situated and the adjoining land used in connection therewith and also includes any vacant land. This means that sectional title schemes are also regarded as premises.

If the premises have more than one street frontage, in other words if different sides of the property face different streets, such advertisements are limited to one per street frontage, which means that an agent cannot place more than one sign facing the same street.

In terms of the by-laws an advertisement that is painted on or in any way affixed to the inside or outside surface of any window of a residential building other than a display window is prohibited. It is important to note that the display of pointer boards on the municipal property to indicate the direction to show houses or flats for sale, require the municipal approval. There are certain requirements that an agent needs to comply with before the municipality grants its approval. The estate agent shall be required to submit an application on a prescribed form and pay a prescribed fee to the City Engineer, who shall then issue the agent with a permit disc. Such permit disc will have a number of pointer boards that the agent is permitted to display on the municipal property. Not more than four pointer boards can be displayed in respect of each show house or a flat and such boards have to be displayed at a distance more than thirty metres of another.

About the Author

Simphiwe was admitted as an attorney in August 1998, joined Garlicke & Bousfield in 2006 and was appointed a director in 2008. Simphiwe specialises in development work including sectional title and freehold development. He has also had several articles published in the Network column of the Natal Mercury.