Your South African municipality now has to prove your bill is correct What does the law say when dealing with the onus, or burden of proof, on parties when approaching a court for relief on a metering dispute? In the recent Euphorbia (Pty) Ltd t/a Gallagher Estates v City of Johannesburg case, the applicant (Gallagher) was sued by the municipality for several million rand which the municipality alleged was owing to it as a result of water and sewage charges due and payable by Gallagher to the city. Gallagher’s response to this claim was that the charges that the municipality was seeking to recover from it were based on a faulty meter and accordingly that these amounts were not lawfully owing. This is a victory for municipal consumers as it removes the responsibility of the consumer in legal proceedings to prove that the municipality’s charges are wrong and/or that meters are not functioning properly. It instead places the opposite responsibility on the municipality: To prove that its charges are correct and that their meters are functioning properly. This will undoubtedly assist thousands of consumers in resolving disputes that have been ongoing for many years, because the consumer simply does not have access to the information or the meter in order to resolve these issues, and, despite numerous demands, the municipality is simply not attending to the issue as it should. See the detail at http://ift.tt/29Czc4e
Comments