 Welcome to your Property Rights podcast proudly brought to you by Private Property. If you're looking for expert legal answers to all your property related questions, then stay tuned. Hello, greetings and a very warm welcome. This is your very first episode of your Property Rights podcast. Lovely to be here. I'm Paul Rotherham and this show proudly brought to you by Private Property. Now over the course of the next few weeks, we're going to be bringing you some incredibly interesting episodes, getting expert legal advice, answering your questions and joining me in studio will be an expert on property law. She is a property lawyer. Her specific focus is on rentals and evictions. Who is said person while she's joining me in the studio today? Silna Stain. Hello, Silna. Hey, Paul. How are you doing? I am doing fabulously well. I'm going to be a better educated man at the end of the show because as our first program, I would love to know why it is that we're chatting with you because you are not only the MD of SSLR Incorporated Attorneys. That's an attorney firm with a national footprint across South Africa, but you've done many incredible things in the world of law. You've been involved with the Law Society. You are an expert on, among other things, rental law, evictions, and I think this is something that won't be our only focus, but this is something that is probably going to take some of our time in future episodes. So who is Silna? I think that's a great place to start. Well, Paul, the truth is, I think let me first tell you who I am as Silna and then I will move into what I do as an attorney. So I'm Silna Stain, I'm the Managing Director of SSLR Incorporated. SSLR is a law firm specializing in property law. Now usually when you talk to somebody and they say they specialize in property law, it means it's a conveyancing firm, so they do transfer properties and bond registrations. SSLR is unique in that even though we do have a very strong conveyancing component, we actually focus more on evictions. And if you look at the firm's setup and makeup and you see a majority female firm, it might be a very weird thing to imagine us going out with baseball bats evicting people. That's not what we're doing. What we're doing is we specialize in this particular very complex part of the law. So evictions isn't complex because of the specifics around evictions per se, but it's a very complex part of the law simply because there are so many pieces of legislation that find application on rentals and then obviously on evictions as well. So the last time I counted, and this was before the Property Practitioners Act came onto the scene, we sat with about 65 pieces of legislation that finds application in the context of rentals. So how this all started was actually massively accidentally. When I was 24, I decided maybe going from articles into a bigger law firm is not really going to make me happy for the rest of my life. So I think it was more stupidity that led to bravery and then bravery led to me starting the firm with another founding partner. And that was 13 years ago at this stage. Now I obviously gave my age away, but it's a pleasure. It's a good story simply because when you start a law firm, and now I apologize to all the attorneys out there, I'm giving our secrets away now, but when you start a practice every time the phone rings, you're an expert in that particular part of the law. So if somebody calls you and they want a divorce, you say, I have been doing divorces for years, I am more than happy to help you. If the next thing comes in and it's a decision of judgement, you do that and you're an expert in that. So what happened is about two years from starting the firm, there was a few evictions that came in and at the time in 2008, evictions were still very, not really something that we saw on a regular basis in practices because the prevention of illegal evictions act was only promulgated in 1999 and then we had a very big, very relevant appeal court case, the Cape Killani matter, and that was only handed down in 2001. So by 2008, people were sort of still in the dark about evictions and luckily I was young and silly and brave, so I said, let me try and figure this out. And in about two years, the law society realized, oh my goodness, there is an attorney who sort of gets evictions and little did I know, it was thanks to my trial and error and I started presenting the eviction seminar on behalf of the Law Society of South Africa to all the attorneys in the country. I've been doing that ever since and you can imagine training attorneys on a topic means you need to be on top of your game constantly. For sure. And that forced me into a situation where SSLR was started to be seen as one of the foremost expert firms in the country and obviously one thing leads to another and 13 years later, I look back and I'm massively proud of the team I'm working with and what we are doing for the property industry in South Africa. And here you are, the pinnacle of your career, Silne. You are doing your property rights podcast with Paul Rotherham and private property. This is without a doubt going to be the event that takes the cake, I think. I think so too. And I must say, it's just because you're much more entertaining to chat to than attorneys and I say that collegially. I'm not so sure that I should be feeling that that's a compliment. Just to touch on something very briefly, we have been interacting with you as private property across our socials, our Facebook page, which as you know is particularly busy and thank you very much. If you're listening to this now on our Facebook page, you are welcome to comment, of course, with some really exciting episodes coming up over the next few weeks. But something to just keep in mind is that our property rights podcast series is not going to be focusing specifically on evictions, neither is it going to be focusing specifically on matters that pertain to you. If you are a tenant or a landlord in terms of rental, it's going to be quite widespread, isn't it, this conversation? Yes, very much so. I think property law is such an important part of any society. How we own property, how we rent property, how we take care of of immovable properties is absolutely crucial. And definitely, I think we're going to be covering a broad spectrum of potential property law related questions and queries and things people wonder about. And the other thing is, I think you will have already heard from Solna, who's a lovely lady, and I'm so glad you could join us for this Solna stain. Solna, albeit she comes with a high pedigree and plenty of qualifications, we're going to make this colloquial. We are going to talk to you in layman's terms because I find that when it comes to law and specifically property law, the average person, myself included, is so easily confused. Yes, and you have my commitment on that as well. I believe if I do training or if I answer a question, if my nine year old daughter can't understand what I'm explaining, then I clearly don't understand the topic well enough. So I'm committed on this one. Well, let me tell you, your nine year old is going to be able to enjoy this series as much as we know you will enjoy this series. So thank you very much for being here. Our first episode of your property rights podcast, what we're going to do is involve you and engage with you and get you to be part of our conversation across our socials, across the private property platforms. And we would love for this to be a start for you as a conversation and something that gets you talking, something that gets you around the bride or at the dinner table, going, hey, did you hear what Paul was chatting about with Solna on the show today? This is really insightful. This is so interesting. And with that in mind, we have a whole load of questions that have come in over the last few weeks and months, in fact, since we've been chatting about doing the show, because this isn't something that's just happened overnight. We've been working on this for many months. And so all of the questions that we are going to be using to start each episode of your property rights podcast, each of those questions will have come from you. So there's going to be a whole host of topics. And Solna, I thank you for joining us. And I really look forward to fleshing out these matters with you in our future episodes. So do I, Paul. I'm really looking forward to it. And I think this is going to add massive value to all consumers, sellers, purchases, homeowners, landlords, tenants, estate agents, everybody. And thank you so much for including me in this. And as a close, where can we find you? Obviously, you will be part of each of our podcasts. But just in terms of how we can find you, if we do have any questions specific to legal matters and law related matters, what's the best place to connect with Solna Stain, who is with SSLR Incorporated Attorneys? Easiest way would be through our website, which is www.SSLR.CO.SA, or on SSLR's Facebook page. More than welcome to interact with me, Zee. And obviously I am on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn everywhere else. So it's relatively easy to find me also with a name like Solna Stain. I am, in fact, the only person in the country by that name. I actually checked. So it's not really tricky to find me, as long as you remember to spell my name with a C. Wonderful. Well, that has been our very first episode. Thank you, Solna, your Property Rights podcast hosted by me, Paul Rotherham. We look forward to the next episode, where we're going to feature just one of the questions, one of the many questions that has come in from you. And I'm really looking forward to that. I do hope you'll join us for our next episode. Your Property Rights podcast is proudly brought to you by Private Property. Leave a comment or ask a question to join the conversation.