Editorial Comment: Houses should be auctioned as a last resort

Shelter is one of the basic human rights and every government has an obligation to ensure that every citizen is provided accommodation. It is for this reason that governments the world over are involved in housing development. The Zimbabwean government has since independence partnered local authorities and the private sector in building houses for the ever increasing urban population. Many new suburbs have sprouted in the different cities and towns as well as at growth points. Under some schemes government and local authorities build houses which are then allocated to home seekers, in most cases, based on the respective town or city’s housing waiting list.

The councils are also allocating serviced or virgin land to housing developers that include co-operatives that then build houses which are then allocated to individuals. The local authorities are also allocating serviced stands to individuals who then build their own houses. Almost all local authorities are battling to clear the housing backlog despite the different housing development schemes under way in their respective cities or towns.

The development of houses is therefore an ongoing exercise as new home seekers join the housing waiting list each passing day. It is the desire of each family to have at least a house they call their own hence the pressure on local authorities to provide houses or housing stands. It is a fact that some families have lost hope of ever owning a house as a result of the economic challenges facing the country.

The mortgage finance which over the years has assisted families to either buy a house or build one has become scarce.
The little that is available is not affordable to most home seekers because of their low salaries.

The lucky families that own houses can therefore not afford to lose this critical asset which is difficult if not impossible to replace given the prevailing economic conditions.

It is therefore disturbing to learn that only last week, 23 houses in Bulawayo had been lined up for auctioning to recover money owed by the affected residents. We are told the sale of 12 of the houses was cancelled at the last minute after the owners of the houses negotiated payment plans.

The auctioning of houses to recover debts should be the last resort as such action deprives family members of one of their basic human rights, which is shelter. What is painful is that most of the houses sold at a public auction are sold for ridiculously low prices and in some cases the sale fails to raise adequate money to pay off the debt.

Those that borrow money have an obligation to pay back but auctioning a house to recover the money borrowed should be the last resort. The fact that the sale of 12 houses had to be cancelled after the owners agreed on payment plans means that there are alternative ways of recovering money owed other than auctioning a house which in most cases represents a family’s life savings.

We want at this juncture to implore government and local authorities to protect residents against heartless financial institutions and service providers that rush to auction houses without exhausting other alternatives of recovering their money.