In light of this, we’ve recently met up with the head sheriff of Sheriff Halfway House Alexandra, Theo Sibert who spoke to us about all things sheriff auctions.
Online Auctions.Africa – Congratulations on your recent online Immovable Property Auction. Can you tell us why you’ve found online auctions to be more effective?
Theo Sibert – Online auctions are more effective because we bring a market to the public that they don’t know, people just don’t know that we run sale in execution auctions. With Online Auctions. Africa, the marketing that you send out once a week is incredible. Since the marketing happens regularly, there are more buyers enquiring and participating in our Sale In Execution auctions.
Online Auctions.Africa – We are getting quite a few queries from people are about to get their assets repossessed and they are wanting to know the process.
Theo Sibert – You have to remember there IS a process. The owner of the property that is being attached whether it is an immovable property or a movable property, they’ve been included in the legal process for many months or many years already. So they know that first of all they owe money to somebody and secondly that there’s a court case hanging.
That it will be heard in court and the court will make a decision on the way forward. The defendant at that stage, once served a judgement becomes a judgement debtor. It’s a different story once a matter has been heard already in court and the magistrate or the judge has made a decision on that. So before a sheriff executes a judgement, a warrant has to be issued by the court. A court won’t give a warrant or an execution order if that person wasn’t represented in that court, they won’t do it in their absence.
Yes, there are instances where they can do that, but mostly today they want to listen to the story of the defendant. Rules have changed to accommodate the defendant to come to court. The defendant knows that there’s a matter against him and that a sheriff is going to rock up at his house to either serve him a document saying go back to court or saying here I am can you pay the outstanding debt that the court has already granted against you?
The sheriff first has to collect the outstanding money, then if he can’t do that, only then will the sheriff be able to attach his movable assets or in some instances in which the court must grant a second-order saying you must attach his immovable assets.
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