Beverley Maureen Smith OBO Cumberland Mews Body Corporate v Hilda Joy Reijnders (Late Estate)

The Community Schemes Ombud Service (CSOS) received an application for dispute resolution concerning arrear levies. The applicant was Beverley Maureen Smith acting on behalf of Cumberland Mews Body Corporate, and the respondent was Hilda Joy Reijnders (Late Estate). The matter was adjudicated under the amended Practice Directive for Dispute Resolution, 2019, and the parties were afforded an opportunity to provide final written submissions. Before adjudication on the merits, the applicant requested that the application, which concerned arrear levies and had been registered on 21 August 2023, be withdrawn because both the respondent and her daughter (described as a tenant) had subsequently passed away. According to correspondence from Mrs Smith of PRN-Estates (Pty) Ltd, the managing agent, dated 8 January 2024, the matter would instead be dealt with internally.

• Whether the CSOS adjudication concerning arrear levies should proceed after the applicant requested its withdrawal.
• Whether, in the circumstances following the deaths of the respondent and her daughter, the appropriate procedural order was to remove the matter from the adjudication roll and close the file.

The matter was removed from the roll and the file was closed.

Where an applicant in a CSOS dispute no longer wishes to pursue the application, and the circumstances indicate that the matter will be dealt with outside the adjudication process, the adjudicator may issue a procedural order removing the matter from the roll and closing the file rather than deciding the dispute on the merits.

There are no meaningful obiter dicta in the order. The adjudicator merely recorded that the respondent and her daughter had passed away and that the matter would be dealt with internally, but made no wider legal observations.

The order illustrates the procedural power of a CSOS adjudicator under the Community Schemes Ombud Service framework to remove a matter from the adjudication roll where the applicant seeks withdrawal and the dispute will not proceed. It is not significant as a precedent on the substantive law of levies, but it shows that CSOS may dispose of matters administratively or procedurally without reaching the merits where circumstances render adjudication inappropriate or unnecessary.