I have just opened my mail this morning and received a revised valuation of my propery. To my greatest surprise my property value increased 11 (ELEVEN) times since the last valuation about a year ago. Now, I'm thinking to myself that surely there should be a huge mistake as I have not gold-plated the inside of my house, nor installed a olympic size swimming pool or the like. I have searched the City of Cape Town's valuation website and could accually see what my neighbour's property are worth... certainly not that much!

While going through the motions of calling the City of Cape Town Municipality and explaining in detail my enquiry to 6 different people offering no assistance at all, I was convinced that a village is missing some idiots and that they all could be found in one office block in Cape Town!

I tried to speak to the valuator that did the valuation of my property and ended up with his very helpful assistant that got my file and let slip that the valuator never even set foot on my property to do a proper assessment. By this time I was a couple of olives short of a Martini and threatened them with legal action after which I was clamly told that I should take the matter to the local valuation "court", fill in thousands of forms, take a number and they will call me... But, until then I am obliged to pay the (much) higher property rates until we receive a ruling from the valuation "court".

Has anyone been in the same situation that could offer some advice on how to address this issue (apart from a step-by-step guide to blow the place to smithereenz!)