 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. It's lovely to welcome you back to your Property Rights Podcast. Hello, I'm Paul Rotheram and this show proudly brought to you by Private Property. I'm joined in studio once again by the lovely Silna Stain, who is an expert when it comes to property law. With a specific focus on rentals and evictions, Silna is the MD of SSLR Incorporated Attorneys. Nice to have you with me, Silna. Hey Paul, nice to be back. Thank you very much. It's a wonderful topic today. Are you a pet owner? Are you a pet lover? I am. I am. I think sometimes I'm more Noah than an attorney. I'm definitely a super pet person. Do you have a farm at home then? I do. Oh boy. I'm that person with the three cats. I'm willing to admit it and a dog. Well I must admit you fall short because with something like 50 koi, seven cats and two dogs, I take the cake for this one. In fact, I don't. The person who takes the cake is you because we got your question. We thought this was a fabulous question to include in your Property Rights Podcast. The person writes as follows, I am at my wit's end. My next door neighbor has a large breed dog which barks and howls nonstop throughout the night. Been there, done that. I've tried reaching out to the owners but I've been told that the dog is deterring intruders and for that I should be grateful. However, writes this person, it is very hard to be grateful when you've only had two hours of sleep. And so the question that kicks off our second episode is this, please help. I am an animal lover. I cannot live like this anymore. What do I do? This is such a sad question, Paul, especially from an animal lover. I think we all know, even though we love animals and sometimes the neighbors' pets are a little more pricky than what we would like them to be. So in a case like this, unfortunately, from the question, it seems to be a normal suburban sort of setup, so not necessarily a sectional title setup and I'll get back to why that would be relevant. If we look at just a suburban setup, you stay in this house, number 13, I stay in number 15, look at my lawyer mathematics, keeping up with skipping a number there. Because number 14 wouldn't be next door to be over the road. Exactly, look at us, we know property. So Paul, a lot of things can happen and this is actually a specific part of law called neighbor law. I kid you not, there's an entire section of law dealing with neighbor law. What should neighbors be doing? How should they be interacting? And how is this enforced? And the problem with neighbor law is very often the governing body is the municipality. And essentially, if we struggle sometimes to get rates, clearance certificates, can you imagine how surprised the poor municipality would be if you rock up to the municipality's office with a complaint about the neighbor's dog? You're wasting your time. You definitely are. And potentially a bit of frustration that would go wasted for absolutely no reason. So the way this listener handled the situation is unfortunately the only way you can to try and approach the neighbor and negotiate. The truth about neighbor law is there is a very purposeful litigation avoidance. Even though it's the end, you're entitled to litigation with your neighbors. I personally discourage this simply because you live next to each other. And litigation, very often when I start talking about litigation, I realize people one day if I am in fact an attorney because I discourage litigation as far as I can. Probably because I see firsthand how litigation affects people. It's damaging. It's damaging. In every way, financially, emotionally, it's damaging. So to litigate with the neighbor might not be the best emotional choice. If you think that the barking dogs keeping you up, the stress of litigation and not to mention the financial stress that goes with that, will keep you awake much more. So I'm not saying let the dog bark, get yourself some nice earplugs. I am saying avoid litigation with your neighbor at all costs unless it's really necessary and it would make financial sense and you are willing to go into a three, four year legal battle and I am not exaggerating. At this stage our court rolls are massively contested. So to get into court with something like this is going to take quite a lot of time. Practically what do we do? So I'm not going to give a legal answer here, I'm giving a practical answer. Practically do a letter to the neighbor, do a kind letter. And a friendly letter. Exactly. Not an aggressive, threatening letter. As you said, be neighborly. Exactly. And for the moment really my advice is avoid attorneys. The moment that letter comes on an attorney's letterhead, gloves are off and the fight is on. So you're saying don't use an attorney's letterhead? Not yet. Just use that pretty paper that you've got on the kitchen counter, like you're writing a sick note for your son or daughter at school. A hundred percent and say I can't sleep because of the dog. Let the neighbor know you're a pet lover, let them know. It's not that you have issues with pets and this is, even if you do, just tell this story. I am the biggest fan of Ubuntu. This is my other part of the law that I really enjoy and I present seminars to the Law Society on the topic of Ubuntu as well. And with that in mind approach the neighbor with a conversation, try not to be antagonistic. So try not to do this the morning after the dog kept you awake. Wait for your second cup of coffee until you calm and properly awake. Walk across the street, knock on the door, ring the bell. You can't knock on doors. Ring on the bell and say this is the problem or write it down. Like I said, push the letter, you know, stick it to the gate or whatever and ask for conversation. Don't make a lot of demands because this neighbor is probably as frustrated with the situation as you are and probably seven times more embarrassed about the situation. So to confront this person, now I'm sounding more like a psychiatrist in a... They've hired you for all of your capabilities stillness. So keep it coming. So rather approach with with an open conversation and say, how can we help? Maybe the problem is they do want to keep the dog outside, but he wants to be able to go in and out and maybe suggest a doggy door, a big doggy door. Something like that to to practically address the situation. But the truth is if the dog is going to bark and howl outside and they want a dog outside for protection purposes, maybe they should rather consider cameras or laser beams or something outside. The dog in fairness will probably enjoy sleeping inside more as it is. But unfortunately in law, in the context of a normal suburban area, there isn't really something that we can do other than having a discussion when it comes to pets. If it was, like I said in the beginning, when I started answering, I started giving my very long answer. When it comes to sectional title, it could be very different. Okay. Suddenly with sectional title. Living in a townhouse complex where you're literally a meter away from each other's bedroom windows. Yeah. Exactly. And even more importantly, where we have conduct rules. So the conduct rules of the complex will deal with things like this. Are you allowed to have pets? If you're allowed to have pets, what kind of pets? And if you have noisy pets or loud pets, you must control it. So you have to bring the dog inside something like that. In a case like that, and where the conduct rules does allow for action by the body corporate in a situation like this, they will take action and here as a tenant can either request your landlord to approach the body corporate to deal with this situation or if you're an owner in the body corporate approach the managing agent say this is the problem. Once again, even though you have that extra layer which you don't in a normal suburban area, I still recommend just go have the conversation. Most people are nicer than what we give them credit for. Sectional title law almost gives me a little bit more of a safety net and more protection than if I'm living in the suburb. If I'm in the suburbs, are you saying that there's not really anything I can do unless perhaps we're bordering on abuse? In which case that could be an issue for the SPCA, I'm guessing. Yes, 100%. So unfortunately, if the dogs are really going mad, like you said, maybe getting the SPCA involved or if there's abuse, definitely get the SPCA involved. But intersectional title complex, if the conduct rules does not deal with this as an owner and then as a member of the body corporate, you can raise it and ask the body corporate to make a rule around animals and barking and noise. And that will be raised at an AGM or an annual general meeting. Or if it's very important to deal with it quickly, a special general meeting to amend the conduct rules to cater for that. My final question, Silna, because we're almost out of time with this, our second episode, it is your property rights podcast brought to you by private property. Is there or are there any bylaws? I'm sure I remember arriving in this country from the UK in the early 80s and there were actually restrictions on how many animals you could have in, I'm talking about the typical suburbs. Now, to your knowledge, which hopefully you have lots of being a legal expert, is there a limit to the number of cats, dogs or whatever animals there are that you are allowed in a home? So our bylaws are very specific when it comes to these kind of things. But every single municipality's bylaws would be unique and different. So we don't have a one standard set rule. I remember what you are talking about. There was a limit. I think it was actually two dogs and two cats. And you had to pay a sort of a fee. There was a license. Yes, there was a license fee. And that's been done away with. But you do have rules around pets. And that's why we're not allowed to keep like cows and stuff in this suburban area. It comes from the same bylaws. So maybe check your bylaws. Maybe you're lucky. But unfortunately, I haven't seen recent bylaws that is clear enough. But maybe I just limited to, say, city of Johannesburg, city of Cape Town, bigger metropolitan areas. So maybe I don't know there could be bylaws that could assist. Well, there you go. There's something that you could chat about in the comments section. Start the conversation. What are the bylaws in your area? Are your neighbors upholding those bylaws? Because if they're not, there is obviously a room for you to take some sort of action. Although we are suggesting, as you've heard from Silner, be kind, be courteous, be neighborly, be polite. Remember that the same person who you are potentially swearing at today and cursing could be the same person who's helping you fetch your child from school next week. So be neighborly, be nice. And we'd love to hear your story. And thank you very much. Barking Mad, episode two of our Property Rights podcast. And I thought that was a really wonderful question. So thank you for submitting that. I think we've given you the answer there. Do join us for episode three of this show, Your Property Rights Show. And it's brought to you by Private Property. I'm Paul Rotheram, and thank you for listening. Your Property Rights podcast is proudly brought to you by Private Property. Leave a comment or ask a question to join the conversation.