Sakeliga escalates Property Practitioner challenge to ConCourt

Sakeliga has escalated its case against the overbroad Property Practitioners Act and its BEE requirements to the Constitutional Court.

Our aim is twofold:

1. First, to confirm the High Court’s declaration that the Act’s requirement for BEE certificates is invalid.
   
2. Second, to appeal certain shortcomings in the High Court’s judgment in order to properly curtail the Act’s overbroad definition of “property practitioner”.

The dual application for confirmation and appeal follows a ruling by the Pretoria High Court in Sakeliga’s favour on 8 September 2026. The ruling brought significant and immediate relief from BEE requirements for every business and client in the industry, and rolled back some of the Act’s encroachment on business activities that shouldn’t require licensing in the first place.

The court declared the Act’s section 50(a)(x), which made BEE certificates a prerequisite for permission to operate as a “property practitioner”, invalid. The PPRA was ordered with immediate effect to cease requiring BEE certificates.

The court also partially upheld Sakeliga’s challenge in respect of the invalidity of the definition of “property practitioner”. Since rulings invalidating Acts of Parliament require confirmation by the Constitutional Court, Sakeliga has now referred the order accordingly.

While the Pretoria High Court agreed with Sakeliga that the definition of “property practitioner” was overbroad, it removed only a limited range of persons and businesses from the operation of the Act, when it should have done so more comprehensively. Sakeliga is now asking the Constitutional Court to correct this shortcoming and also exclude property developers, bond brokers, property administrators and others unjustifiably brought within the Act’s reach.

Property-related activity is not estate agency

The Act expanded a regulatory framework for estate agents to encompass a wide range of fundamentally different activities. Merely selling, financing, advertising or administering property can now bring people and businesses within the definition of “property practitioner” and subject them to the PPRA’s licensing and enforcement powers.

Sakeliga’s challenge concerns the unjustified application of this regime to people and businesses whose activities do not involve holding clients’ money in trust. Safeguards for estate agents who hold such funds do not justify imposing the same regulatory framework on other property-related activities.

The consequences are substantial. Inclusion in the definition brings Fidelity Fund Certificate and trust account requirements, as well as exposure to the PPRA’s inspection powers. Operating without the required certificate can carry criminal consequences.

The issue is therefore not merely how the Act classifies a business. It is whether people may carry on ordinary, productive activities without first obtaining a regulator’s permission.

The remaining challenge

Sakeliga is seeking leave to appeal the High Court’s refusal to invalidate paragraphs (a)(iv) and (c) of the definition, and its refusal to invalidate paragraph (b) in full.

The appeal seeks comprehensive relief for, among others:

• Bond brokers and bridging-finance providers whose work concerns financing property transactions rather than estate agency.
  
• Property developers who merely sell or rent out units in their own development.
  
• People paid to administer or manage property for others, under wording broad enough to encompass caretakers, farm managers, residence matrons and similar roles.

Bringing these fundamentally different activities under the same regulatory regime is irrational and unjustifiably infringes the freedom to trade. It imposes costs and restrictions without a corresponding legitimate purpose, to the detriment of businesses, their clients and the communities they serve.

Our Constitutional Court application seeks to ensure that doing business does not depend irrationally and arbitrarily on state permission or BEE certificates.

Resources

• Notice of Motion - Application for confirmation and leave to appeal
  
• Sakeliga defeats BEE licensing in the property sector