Page 60 - Q&A 2019/2020

Can a Home Owners’ Association impose
speeding limits and fines?

Stacey Bartlett
April 2019

“I live in a gated estate which is run as a Home Owners’ Association. The
association has recently put up 40 km/h speed warnings and has informed
the homeowners that speeding fines will be imposed for transgressions of the
speed limit. I find this quite ridiculous particularly as the general speed limit is
60 km/h. Can they do this?”

Home Owners’ Associations (HOAs) are generally quite similiar to sectional title
schemes, with residents in a community often joining together to help maintain
infrastructure and the safety and security of those living within the community.

HOAs also formulate their own rules and regulations which apply to the
homeowners living in the HOA. When living in a HOA the rules and regulations
apply to homeowners and can include aspects such as speed restrictions and Property
penalties which may be more restrictive than that of a normal public road.

In the recent Supreme Court of Appeal case of Mount Edgecombe Country
Club Estate Management Association II (RF) NPC v Singh & others, the court had
to consider whether roads within a private housing estate were ‘public roads’ as
defined in the National Road Traffic Act 93 of 1996 and whether conduct rules
ordaining a speed limit of 40 km/h within the estate, were unlawful. The KwaZulu-
Natal High Court (Pietermaritzburg) held that the roads in this particular HOA
estate were ‘public roads’ and were subject to the National Road Traffic Act and
that the HOA was usurping the role of the Transport MEC and local municipality
by drawing up their own rules and imposing fines for contravening them.

On appeal however, the Supreme Court of Appeal, after considering the
definition of ‘public road’ and applying it to the present case, stated that an
estate is essentially a private township. In terms of the township approval the
owner had to construct all the roads in the township to the satisfaction of the
local authority. At the inception of the estate, the roads within the estate were
private roads. That never changed and the roads did not thereafter acquire the
character of public roads.

The court continued that when the respondents chose to purchase property
within the estate and become members of the HOA, they agreed to be bound
by its rules. The relationship between the HOA and the respondents is thus
contractual in nature. The conduct rules, and the restrictions imposed by them,
are private ones, entered into voluntarily when an owner elects to buy property
within the estate. By agreement, the owners of property within the estate
acknowledge that they and their invitees are only entitled to use the roads laid
out within the estate subject to the conduct rules.

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