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The Witness •

AI: Productivity, not accuracy

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has encouraged automation, but by no means is it a replacement for professionals in the legal sphere. I was once presented with an interesting case of a man who used AI to generate a community scheme’s conduct rules, and it was painfully obvious.


The document cited repealed laws from 1986, which the AI tool sourced from online blog articles, unable to distinguish between references to laws that are in effect and laws that are not. ALSO READ | Opinion | The AI cra...
Rode Media •

Disputing sectional title fines: Two recent adjudication orders

With the proliferation of sectional title schemes in South Africa in the last two decades, the promulgation of the Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act 8 of 2011 and the Community Schemes Ombud Service Act 9 of 2011 attests to the necessity to regularise the management of these schemes. However, the management of a sectional title cannot be performed without the cognisance and application of statutory obligations. Sectional title management and conduct rulesUnsurprisingly, sectional title sch...
South African Business Matters •

Artificial Intelligence: The future of auditing digital footprints

AI, being primarily computing that emulates human intelligence, experienced a boom in its use in recent years. Microsoft reported that ChatGPT (a popular generative AI chatbot) reached 100 million users in just the course of two months, with AI usage by enterprises increasing to 75% in 2024 from 55% usage the previous year. Evidently, the adoption of AI is exponentially growing.A 2023 study published by Springer discussed the use of AI-powered OSINT tools, noting that AI automates the process of...
Everything Property •

Sectional title trustees can face consequences for breaching scheme rules

Law academic Ashwini Singh shares that it is the priority of a sectional title scheme’s trustees to serve their body corporate and not their self-interests. Trustees have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of a body corporate, however, there have been instances when trustees regrettably breach the very rules of the scheme that they are supposed to be upholding.
WORDS & PHOTO: ASHWINI SINGH
Rules apply equally to all owners and occupiers in a scheme, and the reality is that no owner no...
The International Journal for Crime, Law, and AI •

Artificial Intelligence in the Courtroom: A Marvel or a Menace?

“Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” have undoubtedly become international catchphrases in the late 2010s and early 2020s. With the concept formerly conceived in the 1950s (Reiling 2020, p.2), AI is widely understood as the utilisation of technology to automate tasks that traditionally require human intelligence (Surden 2019, p.1307). Dr Dory Reiling (2020, p.2), a former senior judge of the Amsterdam court, defines intelligence as...
Ashwini Singh
Conviction •

Making sectional title rules that work: A practical guide

Sectional title schemes are like little cities. While cities have by-laws, sectional title schemes have rules which are divided into two categories: management rules and conduct rules.

Management rules

As the name suggests, management rules relate to the management of a scheme. These rules can come in the form of Prescribed Management Rules as described under the Sectional Titles Schemes Management Regulations, or as established specifically for a scheme in terms of subsection 10(2)(a) of the...
SowetanLIVE •

Rules for a reason

Eyebrows were raised when a Durban-based ethics researcher refused to recuse himself as a trustee in the body corporate he served when he had a conflict of interest in a matter being considered.The trustee, who used his profession as an ethics researcher to rationalise his unethical actions, continued to be involved in decision-making within the body corporate despite his personal interests. This begs the question: can trustees influence decisions in which they have a conflict of interest?The an...
Conviction •

Protection order among the consequences of trespassing in an 'Exclusive Use Area'

With many South Africans opting to reside within community schemes for the purposes of safety, one of the most popular types of residential schemes are sectional title developments. Stemming from these complexes is a recurring dispute: Exclusive Use Areas (better known as “EUAs”).

An Exclusive Use Area is as the name denotes – an area by which an owner holds the exclusive right to use and enjoy, to the exclusion of the other members of the scheme. EUAs can come in the form of garden areas, cour...
Conviction •

Between a rock and a foul-smelling place

Ashwini Singh

A precarious predicament unfolded in a Durban sectional title scheme recently. Absurdly, a rock was found in the complex’s sewer system, causing a major pipe blockage.

But here is where the real problem arose: a unit owner prevented plumbers from attending to the sewer system by not giving them access to the manhole in his unit where the rock was stuck. Insofar as the complex is concerned, can such selfish actions of a unit owner be entertained in a sectional title scheme setting...
Everything Property •

Exclusive Use Area boundaries in sectional title schemes

The concept of exclusive use rights can be complex to navigate in a sectional title scheme. However, not taking the time to understand the boundaries of a scheme’s Exclusive Use Areas can break a body corporate’s bank, writes Ashwini Singh.
WORDS & PHOTO: SUPPLIED
Singh says that, as the name suggests, an Exclusive Use Area (“EUA”) is a part of a sectional title scheme’s common property to which a specific section owner holds the exclusive use right over (to the exclusion of the other owners in...
Everything Property •

Residential sectional title schemes are not open for businesses

Sectional title schemes in South Africa are equal parts popular as they are restrictive, writes Ad Hoc Lecturer in law, Ashwini Singh. She says that, with 56 000 schemes registered nationally, they are all bound by the same regulations: one being that owners and occupiers are prohibited from running businesses within their sections in residential schemes.
WORDS & PHOTO: SUPPLIED
The Sectional Titles Schemes Management Regulations (the “STSM Regulations”) create Prescribed Management Rules (“PMRs...