Property owners in the eThekwini Municipality have until the end of March 2026 to lodge any objections for the 5th General Valuation (GV) 2026. The GV opened on February 13, 2026.
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Property owners in eThekwini Municipality have until March 2026 to lodge objections against the 5th General Valuation 2026, which opened on February 13.
The eThekwini Ratepayers Protest Movement (ERPM) is expected to have a GV roll webinar with municipal law experts to help ratepayers understand how to challenge incorrect valuations on Saturday, March 7.
Asad Gaffar, the ERPM chairperson, said they have received numerous complaints that some property evaluations are incorrect and some are exorbitant.
“If your evaluation is wrong, you have the right to challenge it,” he said.
The ERPM is offering
Gaffar stated that the webinar would cost R250.
“Every ratepayer is up in arms. There is a major flaw in the budgeting, and this city is exploiting tariff increases to justify an illegal budget,” he said.
Justifying the cost of the webinar, Gaffar said: “Anyone wanting legal advice will have to pay a lawyer a minimum of R3,000 per hour. The R250 is a steal. Our members get to be part of this for free.”
Niki Moore, the director of Problem Properties Forum (NPO), said residents in the Berea area are fed up with the collapse of service delivery, and this was their chance to do something about it.
“The majority of those values are nothing but thumb-sucked, based on a formula linked to the inflation rate. It does not reflect the value on the ground. If your home is next door to an unregistered student accommodation or business, this can knock out a percentage from your rates,” she advised
“If you live in any of Durban Central’s residential suburbs, the value of your property should not have increased at all, as the market value has decreased.”
She said objections could be about domestic refuse collection not being collected, verges not maintained, illegal building, and the general deterioration of the area.
“We cannot sit back and allow the municipality to charge us more for less. The objections are a clear way to send the municipality a signal that they really do need to up their game when it comes to problem properties,” she said.
According to a report presented at a council meeting in February 2026, the municipality has 555,539 total properties valued at approximately R7 billion as of December 2025.
The municipality's Revenue Management Unit is preparing to embark on an intensified registration campaign to further increase customer uptake of the e-Services platform.
The report stated that the Local Government: Municipal Property Rates Act (MPRA) required the municipality to undertake a GV at least once every four years.
The municipality has been given the go-ahead at the council meeting for the proposed 5% increase for all Valuation Roll tariffs for the 2026/27 financial year to be taken for public participation process, together with the draft budget.
The eThekwini Municipality website stated: “Physical inspection of all 500,000 properties throughout the metro is neither feasible, affordable, nor required by law, but is undertaken where considered necessary by the valuer to check information already to hand.”