Property Sold? What Happens to Your Lease in SA

Does Your Lease Survive the Sale?

The starting point is an old common law rule known as huur gaat voor koop, which translates roughly as "lease takes precedence over sale". In practice this means that when a landlord sells a property that is already let, the buyer steps into the seller's shoes as the new landlord for whatever remains of the lease term. The buyer becomes bound by the same rent, the same duration and the same terms the tenant originally agreed to, whether or not the buyer personally negotiated any of it. A tenant does not need to sign anything new, and does not need the new owner's consent to keep living there for the balance of the agreed period. This rule exists precisely so that a sale cannot be used as a shortcut around a tenant's contractual rights.

When Does a Lease Need to Be Registered?

The huur gaat voor koop principle applies automatically to short leases without any extra paperwork. Longer leases are treated differently under the Formalities in Respect of Leases of Land Act, which deals with leases running for more than ten years, leases for the lifetime of the tenant, or leases that renew indefinitely. To bind a new owner who was not a party to the original agreement and who had no knowledge of it, a lease of this kind generally needs to have been registered against the title deed of the property in the Deeds Registry. If a long lease was never registered and the buyer genuinely did not know about it, the buyer may not be bound by it in the same way. This is why tenants on long or lifetime leases should ask their landlord, or their own attorney, whether the lease has in fact been registered, rather than assuming that simply having a written agreement is enough.

Can the New Owner Evict You Once the Sale Is Registered?

Buying a rented property does not give the new owner an automatic right to remove the existing occupant. Once registration of transfer has taken place in the Deeds Registry, the new owner becomes the registered owner and the new landlord, but any residential occupier, including a tenant whose lease has lapsed or was never properly documented, remains protected by the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act. This means the new owner cannot change the locks, cut services, or physically remove a tenant's belongings without first obtaining a court order authorising the eviction. Self-help eviction remains a criminal offence and exposes the new owner to a spoliation claim regardless of how clearly they now own the property. If a tenant's fixed-term lease has genuinely ended and they are unwilling to leave, the new landlord's proper route is to give notice and, if needed, apply to court, not to act unilaterally.

What Happens to Your Deposit and Notice Period?

Two practical issues often catch tenants and new owners off guard. The first is the deposit. Under the Rental Housing Act, a landlord holds a tenant's deposit in trust and must account for it, together with interest, at the end of the lease. When a property is sold, that obligation does not vanish, but it does need to be dealt with between the seller and the buyer as part of the sale, usually through an adjustment at settlement or a written arrangement for the deposit to be handed over to the incoming owner. A tenant is entitled to ask both the outgoing and incoming landlord, in writing, exactly who is holding the deposit and how it will be refunded. The second issue is notice. If the tenancy has become a month-to-month arrangement rather than a fixed term, the usual notice period agreed in the original lease, or a calendar month if nothing else was agreed, still applies, and a new owner cannot shorten it simply because they would prefer the tenant to leave sooner.

None of this means a tenant can ignore correspondence from a new owner. Some sale agreements are structured so that vacant occupation is a condition of the sale, which changes the practical pressure on a tenant even where the strict legal position favours them. If you are a tenant facing pressure to leave after a sale, or a landlord trying to sell a property with a sitting tenant, it is worth getting the lease, the sale agreement and any notice you have received looked at together, since the interaction between them is where most disputes arise. Our property and eviction law team regularly advises tenants and landlords through this exact transition, and can help you work out where you stand before a disagreement becomes costly.