Addressing the title deed backlog in South Africa – a systems perspective

This study sought ways to respond to the title deeds backlogs for subsidised homeowners and identify opportunities to improve operational implementation gaps in the title deeds registration process. The long-standing housing crisis in South Africa is exacerbated by the growing challenges of managing and administrating housing subsidies for those who cannot afford conventional mortgage loans (Gordon et al., 2011). Aside from an inconsistent approach to subsidised finance in public and private sectors, there remains an additional gap in ensuring subsidy recipients obtain legal ownership of their homes through title deeds (Cirolia, 2015). Local municipalities face mounting challenges in processing these title deeds and delivering them timeously (Magagula & Mubangizi, 2019). Consequently, this study sought ways to respond to the title deeds backlogs for subsidised homeowners and identify opportunities to improve operational implementation gaps in the title deeds registration process. Inductive reasoning and a constructivist approach through the mixed methods, interviews, case studies, and observations in a title deeds registration office were used to understand daily work and operational processes as they occurred in the City of Johannesburg and the City of Tshwane. The main objective was to identify challenges in operational implementation in order to create a working model to improve efficiency (Lubell, 2017). These challenges include issues around the family house (Bolt & Masha, 2019; Mackay, 1996), deceased estates with linkages to family disputes, and the township proclamation process as key challenges to the most long-standing title deeds backlog issues. A proposed operational model restructure has been subsequently developed based on these findings by applying incremental change within a complex system (Suoheimo et al., 2020). The proposed model addresses the gaps in the resolution of the backlogs focused on the key factors affecting the backlogs, specific actions that can be taken, and support structures available for stakeholders within the system. Given the limited capacity and resource constraints for innovation that generally affects the public sector (Bhatti et al., 2018), the proposed model has been developed with minimal cost implications.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Graduate School of Business (GSB)

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Nikiwe, Nontuthuzelo

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Jahajeeah, Jessica
• Nkontwana, Phumlani

• Title Deeds
• Housing Supply
• Service Delivery
• Operations Management
• Systems Change

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/42569

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/42569