Cloud props investment

Cloud props investment

Last last year I signed a purchase lease agreement with the developer. January communication and alleged repudiation During January 2026, you informed the relevant parties by email that you could not afford to proceed with the transaction. For reference, “repudiation” means that a person, through their words or conduct, shows that they no longer intend or are unable to perform their obligations under an agreement. It does not automatically end the agreement. The other party may either accept the repudiation and cancel the agreement or reject it and continue requiring performance. Their subsequent conduct indicates that they chose to continue with the transaction. On 4 February 2026, Justin de Necker, the estate agent who stood to benefit from the commission, stated: “First prize we want is for her to carry on with this transaction.” This further shows that, despite knowing that you could not afford to proceed, the agent’s preferred commercial outcome was to keep you bound to the transaction. They continued pressing you, as a layperson, to perform without meaningfully addressing your financial position or clearly explaining the consequences. They were legally entitled to continue requiring performance. However, the January email, position as a layperson, the agent’s financial interest and their continued pressure for performance provide important context. This context does not appear to have been placed before the Court when default judgment was sought. In your matter, the sheriff’s return specifically states that the summons was served under Rule 4(1)(a)(iv) by affixing it to the door. On the reasoning in Conco, this method was not authorised by the Rule. This, together with the Courts’ broader criticism that merely attaching a summons to a door is generally not a reliable or effective way of bringing proceedings to a defendant’s attention, provides a strong basis for arguing that service was defective and that the default judgment should not have been granted. In Freestone, the Court similarly emphasised that a plaintiff must exercise proper diligence before seeking default judgment. Where other methods of contacting the defendant are available, merely attaching the summons to a door may not constitute effective notice. These judgments are directly relevant because the sheriff followed the same method in your matter. The summons was simply attached to the door of Unit 15 and nothing further was done, while the Plaintiff had both your email address and telephone number but apparently made no attempt to email the summons to you, contact you telephonically, verify whether you still resided at Unit 15, or use another method reasonably likely to bring the proceedings to your attention. The return also does not properly identify “Mr Mkamana”, explain his relationship to you or the premises, or state how he could reliably confirm that you still occupied the unit. I confirmed that the summons and subsequent proceedings never came to your attention. These circumstances support the argument that the default judgment was erroneously sought or granted in my absence. They also provide a reasonable explanation for your failure to defend the action. Suspensive conditions A suspensive condition is an event that must happen before an agreement becomes fully enforceable. Until that event happens, the parties generally cannot enforce the main obligations under the agreement. If the event does not happen within the agreed time, the agreement falls away. principal defence concerns the connection between the Building Agreement and the Land Sale Agreement. The Plaintiff, meaning Cloudprops as the party that brought the claim against you, based its entire claim on the Building Agreement. That agreement contained two suspensive conditions: I obtain a mortgage loan, with a provision stating that approval in principle would be sufficient; and that you enter into the Land Sale Agreement. Approval in principle generally means that a bank is willing to consider granting the loan, but that further requirements may still have to be met. It is not necessarily a final loan which the purchaser has accepted and is legally bound to repay. The Land Sale Agreement contained its own suspensive condition requiring you to obtain a mortgage loan. Importantly, it did not state that approval in principle would be sufficient. The Plaintiff therefore had to establish not only that the loan condition in the Building Agreement was fulfilled, but also that the Land Sale Agreement became operative. If the loan condition in the Land Sale Agreement was not fulfilled, that agreement fell away. In turn, the second suspensive condition in the Building Agreement was not fulfilled, and the Building Agreement upon which the entire claim is based never became enforceable. The Plaintiff alleges only that Nedbank and Standard Bank granted approval “in principle”. My version is that the bond originator never provided the alleged approval to me and that i never signed or accepted a final quotation or loan agreement. Belinda’s email supports your version because she asked me to read, sign and return the bank’s offer, after which Standard Bank would appoint the bond-registration attorneys. This indicates that further steps, including your acceptance, were yet to be signed by me. In Basson v Remini, the Court held that a condition requiring a purchaser to obtain a loan is fulfilled only once the purchaser accepts the loan offered by the bank. In Birrell v Mthethwa, the Full Court considered an agreement which expressly stated that approval in principle would be sufficient. Despite that wording, the Court held that the condition was not fulfilled where the bank’s approval remained subject to an outstanding property valuation. The Court explained that mere approval is insufficient where important conditions imposed by the bank remain unfulfilled. The judgment in Serage N.O. v R similarly confirms that approval in principle is not the same as obtaining a final loan. A quotation or pre-agreement statement may still have to be issued and accepted before the loan condition is fulfilled. This position is supported by section 92 of the National Credit Act. A bank may not conclude a mortgage credit agreement without first providing the consumer with a pre-agreement statement and quotation setting out the amount of the loan, interest, costs and other material terms. For five business days after presenting the quotation, the bank must, at the consumer’s request, conclude the loan on the quoted terms, subject to the limited qualifications in section 92. The approval in principle is therefore not itself the final loan agreement. Section 93 then requires the concluded credit agreement to be delivered to the consumer. An approval in principle is therefore not, by itself, a concluded loan agreement. The consumer must first receive and accept the bank’s final terms. This statutory process cannot simply be ignored by relying on a preliminary approval. Accordingly, our argument is that the loan condition in the Land Sale Agreement was never fulfilled because no final quotation or loan agreement was provided to and accepted by me. The Land Sale Agreement therefore fell away. As a result, the separate condition in the Building Agreement requiring a valid Land Sale Agreement was also not fulfilled. The Building Agreement upon which the Plaintiff’s entire claim is based consequently never became enforceable. There could therefore be no breach, valid cancellation, commission, contractual damages, administration costs or interest under that agreement. My position as a layperson The application can also explain that I entered into and dealt with the transaction as a layperson, without legal advice and without the same knowledge of property, credit and contractual processes as the developer, estate agents and bond originator. My personal and emotional circumstances at the time, including your bereavement and the difficulty I experienced coping during my interactions with the agent, form part of the factual context. These circumstances do not, by themselves, invalidate the agreements. They are nevertheless relevant to explaining my understanding of the transaction, my conduct at the time and why justice requires that your defence be heard before such a substantial judgment is allowed to remain against my name. This supports the broader fairness and proportionality arguments and demonstrates why the claim should not have been determined without my version being heard. Damages, commission, and interest As stated before, if the suspensive conditions were not fulfilled the agreements had already fallen away, and as such the purported cancellation was ineffective and could not trigger claims of damages, commission, or interest. Irrespective of the above, the monetary claim also appears materially defective in the following regards: The Plaintiff claimed 25% of the full contract price, amounting to R110,267.50, under the Building Agreement. This appears to be a contractual penalty fixed in advance, rather than an amount calculated according to the Plaintiff’s actual loss. Our main argument is that no penalty became payable because the suspensive conditions were not fulfilled and the Building Agreement never became enforceable. However, even if the Building Agreement was enforceable, no building work commenced and the Plaintiff has not demonstrated any actual loss approaching R110,267.50. The Conventional Penalties Act allows a court to reduce a contractual penalty when it is excessive compared with the actual prejudice suffered. We can therefore argue that the 25% penalty, together with the other damages claimed, is substantially disproportionate and should be reduced to an amount that fairly reflects any actual prejudice the Plaintiff can prove. The commission was allegedly payable to the estate agent per the Building Agreement. The agent was, however, not joined as a plaintiff in the case. We can argue here that Cloudprops could not simply claim the agent’s commission as though it were Cloudprops’ own loss and the agent had to have been joined as a party to the action. The commission also appears to have been calculated incorrectly. If commission is calculated at 4.5% of the stated contract price of R441,070.00, plus VAT, as per the Building Agreement, the amount would be R22,825.37. The Plaintiff claimed R40,161.62 and did not adequately explain the amount on which commission was calculated or how it arrived at that figure. The alleged administration costs of R6,500.00 are not expressly authorised or properly substantiated. Interest was claimed from the date of purported cancellation, whereas the agreement provides for interest from the date upon which damages were sustained. The Plaintiff was required to identify and prove that date. Costs and prejudice caused by the judgment A costs order determines whether one party must contribute towards the other party’s legal expenses. It does not necessarily mean that every legal fee will be recovered. There are different levels of legal costs: Party-and-party costs are the ordinary costs and usually cover only part of a party’s actual legal fees. Attorney-and-client costs are higher and allow recovery of more legal expenses. Attorney-and-own-client costs are the highest and most punitive scale. The Plaintiff obtained attorney-and-own-client costs against me. This is the highest and most punitive costs scale, yet the agreements do not appear to authorise it and the Plaintiff does not appear to have provided any proper basis for seeking such an exceptional order. This is another material concern regarding the relief sought and granted by default. I will rely on it, together with the unsupported and excessive amounts claimed and the apparent failure to ensure that the summons actually came to my attention. punitive costs order is justified to mark the Court’s disapproval and reinforce that a litigant seeking default judgment must exercise proper diligence to ensure effective service, particularly when claiming substantial damages and punitive costs. Default judgment should not be used as a shortcut to obtain relief without giving the defendant a proper opportunity to be heard. Any costs order will remain within the Court’s discretion. The Plaintiff stated in its Rule 41A notice that it was willing to mediate. However, because the summons and mediation notice never came to my attention, I was deprived of the opportunity to participate in this process and attempt to resolve the matter before default judgment was granted. The absence of mediation does not, by itself, invalidate the default judgment, because the matter did not proceed to trial. It nevertheless supports s broader argument that defective service deprived me of a meaningful opportunity to participate in the proceedings and pursue the resolution process required before a trial. I was forced to seek legal representation because the sheriff was granted a rit to attach my movable assets,after my legal representation reached out to them cloud props then decided to lower their claim to R70 000; which they want in cash within 10 days.This is what I have and still suffering in the hands of this agency all because I wanted to have a home for my children and I. Kind regards Pearl