On Friday last week we attended a presentation facilitated by the Department: Rural Development and Land Reform regarding the operational readiness of the King Williams Town Deeds Office ("KWTDO").
What follows is a brief summary of what was conveyed to us during the course of that meeting regarding some of the more important operational aspects of that office. We offer this information purely in an effort to provide you with a little insight into some of the processes currently underway in order to effect a transition from the Cape Town Deeds Office to the KWTDO.
The KWTDO will be accepting lodgements from the 4th of December 2017 ("start date"). Given that the Cape Town Deeds Office no longer accepted lodgements after 15 November 2017 it is self-evident that the KWTDO will be confronted with a backlog of lodgements for the period 16 November 2017 to 4 December 2017 ("the initial influx");
While the KWTDO has not yet appointed its ideal staff compliment the KWTDO has seconded staff from various other Deeds Offices around the country on a 3 - 4 month contract basis ("the secondment period"). This has been done to achieve three objectives
The first is to provide sufficient resource to allow for the timeous processing of the initial influx on the start date. The second is to ensure that the ordinary workflow which will commence with lodgements on the start date is timeously processed. The third is to allow sufficient time for the KWTDO to appoint and train (where necessary) the remaining permanent staff compliment required to deal with the anticipated workflow beyond the secondment period.
The Registrar of the KWTDO has indicated that a prospective turnaround time of 6 - 7 working days from lodgement until registration is anticipated. This is based on the operational capacity (which includes the secondments referred to) of the KWTDO and the KWTDO's estimate of the initial influx and the normal workflow which will be received daily thereafter.
The Registrar of the KWTDO advised that the KWTDO will process lodgements until the 27th of December and will reopen for business early in January 2018 on a date still to be announced.
We stress that the above information represents a summary of some of the information which was conveyed to us during the course of the meeting last Friday and we are accordingly not in a position to guarantee that turnaround times will be as anticipated. What ultimately happens in practice with workflow in the KWTDO will be entirely outside of our control and exclusively within the control of the KWTDO.
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