Look up a property in Buffalo City (East London)
Free: erf number, township, last registered sale and imagery. No owner names.
ErfCheck searches the City's own GV2022 roll and its supplementary rolls live, by erf and township, and sectional title units by scheme and unit. When a property was revalued on a supplementary roll, the newer value is the one shown. You can also type an erf number with its township (for example "Erf 1234, Rondebosch") to get the street address back.
Reading a property's entry on the roll
Each property on the GV2022 roll is one line, whether you find it on the council's portal, on the published roll or on your valuation notice:
- Property description: the erf (or farm portion, or sectional unit) and its township, as registered. This is how the council identifies the property, not the street address; what an erf number is.
- Street address, where the council records one.
- Category: residential, business, agricultural, vacant land and so on. The category sets which rate in the rand applies, so a wrong category costs money even when the value is right.
- Extent: the registered land area (for a sectional unit, the section's floor area).
- Market value: the figure your rates are worked out from.
If the description, category or extent is wrong, that is an error of fact to raise with the valuations office, separate from disagreeing with the value.
How to object to your valuation
- Check the window. The general-roll window (closed at 16h30 on 28 April 2023) has closed. Supplementary rolls follow each year (the fourth of GV2022 is on the City's search); the City publishes each one and its objection notice on its website.
- Get the form. Objections go in on the City's own form, one property per objection. Online: the City's valuation portal. Notices and instructions: Buffalo City valuations page.
- Give evidence, not a feeling. An objection succeeds on market evidence as at the date of valuation: registered sales of similar properties on your street, in your scheme or suburb close to that date, and your own purchase price if it was recent. Defects the valuer could not see (structural damage, a smaller extent than recorded) count too.
- Keep paying rates on the roll value while the City decides. If you disagree with the decision you can appeal to the valuation appeal board; the City's decision letter explains how.
The R99 ErfCheck report puts that evidence on one page: the roll value, every recent registered sale on your street or in your scheme, your own transfer, and a plain verdict on whether the gap is worth contesting.
How the value turns into rates
Annual rates are the roll value, less any residential exclusion in the City's rates policy, multiplied by the rate in the rand the council sets in each year's budget (effective 1 July). A lower roll value lowers the bill in proportion. See the rates calculator.