Former Isibaya actress Gcina Mkhize and her two daughters are sharing their contested
Johannesburg home with two male strangers.
She is refusing to vacate the house and is awaiting an eviction order from a man who claims to have purchased her home from an auction after she failed to make her monthly installment payments.
Speaking to Sunday World, Mkhize said she and her former husband purchased the property in Glenvista, south of Johannesburg, in 2015 and lived there with her two daughters and two sons.
She said when she divorced in 2018, the decree of divorce stipulated that they must both contribute equally towards the bond repayment of the house as it was a shelter for their children.
“My ex-husband moved on with his life and left me with my four kids. I was a single parent, and all the bills were on me, and I had one source of income.”
Mkhize said her former husband defaulted on bond repayments until the bank
decided to sell it. She stated that the situation worsened in 2021 when she lost her sole source of income due to the cancellation of Isibaya, where she played a character called Jola.
“After some time, I received summonses from court, and that was when I tried to contact some guy, but his wife told me he had died during the Covid-19 pandemic. I was then referred to an attorney, Pertunia Macingwane, who deals with repossessed house cases. I met her, and we started the process early in the year 2023, but after some time, I received summonses and a judgment from the high court.”
In August 2023, she said, she received a document stating that her house would go under the hammer on October 3.
“She told me not to worry; she would stop the auction in court. She came to me on September 28 in the evening to give me a notice to defend to sign, saying she wanted to go to court on October 2 to stop the auction.”
Mkhize said that Macingwane arrived one day with her associates and informed her that the auction had been cancelled.
However, a few days later, she received a message from an unknown man, saying he had bought her house at an auction.
“He then showed me proof that the house was in his name. I later questioned Macingwane as to what happened. I then asked her to give me the physical document that she supposedly filed to stop the auction. But to date, she has never produced those documents. My mistake was to trust my attorney with everything and not do my own follow up.”
She said Macingwane later told her that she would buy the house and rent it out to the actress for R12 800 a month. When Mkhize received the lease agreement, she told Macingwane she was not comfortable signing it.
“After some time, the man entered the house while I was with my two daughters, and my sons were not present. When he noticed we were ignoring him, he closed the water supply, cut the padlock, and entered the yard.”
Mkhize then reached out to Operation Dudula, whose members came to the house and told the man to switch on the water supply.
“Afterwards, the man came with other men to the house and kicked the gate open and entered the yard. They then had a braai there. They later threatened me. I then called Operation Dudula, and the SAPS, who came and defused the situation.
“On July 17, this man returned and told me his brothers-in-law would be moving into the house, and there was no way he would pay rent for them when he has a house.
“The two men are currently occupying the house with us. He has been demolishing so many things at the house but I will not move out of that house because I had no intentions to move out and I believe my attorney was the one who failed me.”
Mkhize believes the house was bought unlawfully. “This man refuses to apply for an eviction order because he knows there is a process that needs to be followed before he can kick me out of my house. Once the sheriff serves me with an eviction order I have 14 days to oppose it and will oppose it.”
