Specialist eviction solutions · Nationwide
The tenant has stopped paying. Now what?
From the first attorney-issued demand to the court-issued eviction order — and the writ, if it comes to that. One fixed fee, quoted upfront. No VAT.
Nationwide. Panel of independent specialist attorneys.
Every attorney on our panel holds a valid Fidelity Fund certificate and professional indemnity cover, and answers to the Legal Practice Council.
THE USUAL ROUTE
Your instinct is to persuade. The letters go out, then the WhatsApps. You chase, you warn, you threaten to cancel. When that leads nowhere, you take it into your own hands — change the locks, cut the power, send someone round. And now you're worse off than when you started: you've taught your tenant that your threats mean nothing, lost months you can't get back, and handed them a spoliation claim — the court can order them straight back in, at your cost.
THE BETTER WAY
There's a better way — and it starts before you send a single letter. Align every step with what the law requires for a lawful eviction, so your persuasion isn't just pressure; it's already building your case. Then the day persuasion runs out, you don't start over — you move straight from persuasive to decisive.
You're a landlord, not a parent. Stop the bleeding — take back control.
BEFORE COURT — THE NOTICE STAGE
Two ways to apply pressure. Your choice.
Tenant Dispute Portal
These are not generic, fill-in-the-blank templates. The portal reads your lease, your payment record and your correspondence, and drafts around the specifics of your matter — your dates, your amounts, the terms your lease actually contains. And it follows the shape of the notice stage every eviction has to go through, so what you send is building your case from day one, not just venting.
What it isn't: an attorney's letter. It goes out under your name, not on letterhead with an attorney engaging your tenant directly. The portal is guidance, not legal advice, and you review and adjust everything before you send it.
Pre-Litigation Demand & Notice
The other route at this stage. Now the pressure carries an attorney's weight: formal notices on attorney letterhead, with a real attorney engaging your tenant directly — materially more effective than anything you send yourself.
If the tenant lawyers up, our attorney deals with theirs on the notice work — at no extra cost.
Pricing
Two ways to apply pressure. One way to end it. One way to go after your money.
Tenant Dispute Portal
Free
A guided, AI-assisted assessment of your matter.
Upload your lease, payment records, WhatsApp threads, emails and any legal correspondence. The portal reviews what you've supplied, gives you a structured view of where the matter stands, and walks you through what to do at each stage. Documents and correspondence in English or Afrikaans are fully supported. Other South African languages are accommodated where possible.
Includes:
- •Full assessment of your documentation and correspondence
- •A structured view of where you stand and what generally comes next
- •A draft demand or cancellation notice, to send in your own name
- •Document checklist for each stage of the process
Best for matters where the tenant is likely to cooperate, or where you want a clear-eyed view of your case before deciding on a paid service.
Pre-Litigation Demand & Notice
R6,730 — Nationwide
Attorney-issued formal notices required to lawfully terminate the lease and prepare the matter for court if necessary — with attorneys engaging the tenant directly during the notice period.
Includes:
- •Attorney-letterhead formal notices
- •Direct attorney engagement with the tenant
- •A structured notice process of approximately 5 weeks
- •Clear recommendation on next steps at the end of the process
- •If the tenant appoints an attorney, ours deals with theirs on the notice work — at no extra cost
Best chance of resolving the matter without court intervention. At the end of the notice period, you'll have a clear view of what's required going forward.
Eviction Order Service
R35,000 — Nationwide
A managed process from formal notice to court-issued eviction order — coordinated by independent specialist attorneys. One fixed professional fee for a standard eviction, anywhere in South Africa.
Includes:
- •One fee whether the matter is opposed or unopposed — including answering papers and the opposed hearing
- •Demand and notice stage, PIE s4(2) notice, and the full court application
- •Court filing, appearances and process management by the appointed attorney
- •If the tenant doesn't move on the order, the writ of ejectment is included too
- •Written status updates on request, and one point of contact throughout
- •No VAT — Property Recovery is not registered for VAT
For matters where the tenant is unlikely to cooperate, or where you want a single managed process from start to finish.
Debt Recovery Service
Fixed fee · Quoted per matter
The eviction gets your property back. Debt recovery goes after your money. A specialist panel attorney takes your claim through summons to judgment and issues the writ of execution against the tenant's movables — and it can run alongside your eviction.
Fixed fee, quoted per matter before any work — the same whether the claim is R40,000 or R400,000.
Includes:
- •Letter of demand, summons, and prosecution of the claim to judgment
- •Writ of execution issued against movable property
- •Arrears, unpaid utilities, damage — and, where your lease provides for it, the legal costs of getting it back
- •A judgment doesn't fade. The tenant who "has nothing" today is still a debtor when they have a salary, a car, or a home tomorrow
For landlords who want more than possession back.
We assess every matter before work starts and confirm in writing whether it falls within our standard service — most do. If it doesn't, you get the reason and a revised fee in writing before anything begins, and you're free to decline. Matters outside the standard service typically include those governed by ESTA, unidentified occupiers, multiple occupier households, commercial or industrial premises, and matters where proceedings have already been instituted.
Nothing is ever billed after the fact. If something outside the standard scope arises later, it's quoted and agreed in writing before that work is done.
Third-party costs are additional to the fee and billed at cost with no markup. You get an estimate before we start, and the underlying invoice on request.
Cancelling: you can cancel by email at any point before we issue the instruction to the appointed attorney, and your fee is refunded less an assessment fee of R750 (Pre-Litigation Demand & Notice) or R2,500 (Eviction Order Service).
Each service is priced independently. Debt recovery outcomes depend on the tenant's circumstances; no recovery is guaranteed.
Evictions of farm workers and agricultural land occupiers are governed by ESTA and quoted separately.
Payment of any fee constitutes acceptance of our Terms & Conditions, including the provisions identified in the Important Notice at the head of that document. Terms & Conditions.
Why is the Tenant Dispute Portal free?
Fair question — nothing usually is. So here's the honest answer.
An eviction has two distinct phases: before court and in court. The TDP handles the first phase. Like our paid Pre-Litigation Demand & Notice service, it walks you through the notice stage that has to happen before any court will hear an eviction — and done properly, completing that phase correctly is exactly what puts a landlord in a position to approach the court if it comes to that.
The paid PDN service has a higher chance of resolving the matter without court, because a letter on an attorney's letterhead carries real weight. But the TDP is no pushover in its own right — and it does the one thing that matters most: it puts you in a position to take the tenant to court if they ignore the notices.
Here's the reality we can't change: certain notices have to be served, and certain notice periods have to lapse, before any court action can begin. If your tenant runs out that clock and court becomes the only route left, many TDP users come back to us for the court process — because we're genuinely well priced and eviction is what we do. That's where we earn our keep. The free portal simply gets you to that point correctly, so nothing you've done along the way has to be redone.
Why this works
(and why it often costs less than going direct to a lawyer)
Most landlords don't lose money because the law is unclear. They lose money because the process becomes slow, unstructured and expensive — chasing attorneys, sheriffs and paperwork while rent keeps bleeding.
Property Recovery exists to stop that. We drive matters to conclusion with:
- Speed — we know the steps and sequencing that avoid delays
- Cost control — we prevent unnecessary back-and-forth and wasted legal time
- Less effort for you — we coordinate the moving parts so you don't manage the case yourself
We are not a law firm — and that's your advantage
Property Recovery is an independent eviction process manager. Legal work is performed by a panel of independent specialist attorneys appointed on your behalf.
This benefits you in two ways:
Higher accountability.
When you deal directly with a law firm, poor performance costs them one client. When an attorney works through Property Recovery, poor performance costs them many. Our panel attorneys are held to a higher standard because we measure outcomes, speed and quality. Their professional judgment is their own — the process discipline is ours.
Oversight, not billable drift.
Attorneys are essential, but law firms are not always structured for speed. We keep the matter moving, keep it organised and escalate fast when things stall. You don't chase lawyers — we do. One point of contact means your fee isn't consumed by time-based attorney charges.
Specialists, every day
Any attorney in South Africa can handle an eviction matter, but most firms only do evictions occasionally alongside other work. Our panel specialises in evictions and deals with them daily — so if there is a quicker lawful way to structure the process for your facts, they know about it.
The result — faster closure, controlled cost
Even though our fee includes both Property Recovery's process management and the attorney costs, clients often spend less overall than they would on an open-ended hourly file — because we run the matter as a managed process, not an open-ended legal file.
You get cost certainty upfront. We confirm the fee in writing before work starts, so you're not exposed to runaway billable-hour drift.
That means:
- The case is structured correctly from day one
- Fewer delays caused by missing or incorrect information
- Less unnecessary billable time
- Progress that is actively driven, not passively awaited
One fixed fee, opposed or not. If your tenant fights, you're already paid up. No VAT. No hourly billing, no monthly account that grows while the matter sits. You know what it costs before you start.
How it works
Simple, structured, fast.
Most landlords get stuck because the process becomes confusing and slow. We remove that complexity by running a clear step-by-step workflow.
Free assessment
We assess the matter together with the appointed attorney, confirm which service fits and what it will cost, and tell you what we'll need from you.
Choose your starting point
Two routes at the notice stage: start free on the Tenant Dispute Portal and send it yourself, or instruct the Pre-Litigation Demand & Notice service and have an attorney do it on letterhead. If it goes to court, the Eviction Order Service takes it from there — and debt recovery can run alongside either.
We structure the matter properly
We guide you on the exact documents and facts needed, and structure the matter correctly upfront. This is where speed is built in — a properly structured matter moves cleanly through court.
We drive the process
We keep the matter moving, keep it organised and escalate fast when things stall.
Resolution
The tenant vacates during the notice period, or we carry the matter through court to the eviction order. If they still don't move, the writ of ejectment is issued — that's included. Only the sheriff's fee for the physical removal itself falls outside.
Free assessment
We assess the matter together with the appointed attorney, confirm which service fits and what it will cost, and tell you what we'll need from you.
Choose your starting point
Two routes at the notice stage: start free on the Tenant Dispute Portal and send it yourself, or instruct the Pre-Litigation Demand & Notice service and have an attorney do it on letterhead. If it goes to court, the Eviction Order Service takes it from there — and debt recovery can run alongside either.
We structure the matter properly
We guide you on the exact documents and facts needed, and structure the matter correctly upfront. This is where speed is built in — a properly structured matter moves cleanly through court.
We drive the process
We keep the matter moving, keep it organised and escalate fast when things stall.
Resolution
The tenant vacates during the notice period, or we carry the matter through court to the eviction order. If they still don't move, the writ of ejectment is issued — that's included. Only the sheriff's fee for the physical removal itself falls outside.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. We assess every matter before work starts and confirm in writing that it falls within our standard service. If it doesn't, you get the reason and a revised fee before anything begins.
You're a landlord, not a parent. Stop the bleeding — take back control.
Start with a free assessment. Send us a WhatsApp, call, or drop us a mail. We'll walk you through the route out, what it costs, and what we'd need from you. Not ready to talk? The Tenant Dispute Portal is free.
Legal Notice & Terms
Property Recovery (Pty) Ltd is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. Legal services are rendered by a panel of independent specialist attorneys appointed on the client's behalf.
The Tenant Dispute Portal is a free informational and self-service tool. Draft templates generated by the portal are not attorney-issued legal documents and are intended for self-administered use under the client's own name.
Our standard services apply to evictions under the Prevention of Illegal Eviction Act (PIE Act). Evictions under the Extension of Security of Tenure Act (ESTA) — including farm worker and agricultural land occupier matters — are available as a separate service, quoted on a per-matter basis. Debt recovery matters are conducted by panel attorneys; Property Recovery is not a debt collector as contemplated in the Debt Collectors Act, 114 of 1998, and no recovery outcome is guaranteed.
Fees quoted are for standard matters and exclude disbursements. Each matter is assessed and confirmed in writing before work begins. Payment of any fee constitutes acceptance of our Terms & Conditions.
Outcomes and timelines depend on court processes and the circumstances of the matter. All services are governed by our Terms & Conditions.