{"id":873478,"date":"2026-09-03T08:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T06:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=873478"},"modified":"2026-09-03T08:29:53","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T06:29:53","slug":"warning-to-anyone-living-in-estates-and-complexes-in-south-africa-employing-a-domestic-worker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/873478\/warning-to-anyone-living-in-estates-and-complexes-in-south-africa-employing-a-domestic-worker\/","title":{"rendered":"Warning to anyone living in estates and complexes in South Africa employing a domestic worker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Homeowners’ associations and bodies corporate cannot act as immigration authorities when it comes to undocumented or illegal workers in estates and complexes, but residents could still land in hot water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the view of community schemes legal expert at Van Deventer Dowlath & Marx Incorporated, Johlene Wasserman, who warned of the exposures in law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa has experienced a swell of anti-immigrant sentiment in 2026, with multiple protests, marches and government-led blitzes targeting illegal foreign workers in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Employment and Labour (DEL) has also come out with particularly hard lines on the matter, with coming legislation\u2014the Employment Services Amendment Bill\u2014seeking to penalise employers who hire these workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is extends to private households, where threats of R100,000 fines<\/strong><\/a> have been made against employers who are caught hiring undocumented workers\u2014and escalating from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Wasserman, this has presented a legal minefield for community schemes, complexes and residential estates where households might employ such domestic workers or contractors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She stressed that South Africa’s law makes it clear that such schemes may only control access, and that this must be done through non-discriminatory rules and within the bounds of the country’s regulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are no grey areas, she warned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cScheme directors and trustees have a strict fiduciary duty to enforce rules consistently for residents and service providers alike,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“And selective, arbitrary, or discriminatory rule enforcement is going to create serious legal vulnerabilities for community schemes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s fundamentally a matter of clean, lawful governance, with Wasserman emphasising that estates are not immigration police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“While HOAs have the authority to regulate who enters an estate, that power has to be exercised strictly within the limits of the law. Estates may not step into the shoes of statutory law enforcement.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that, while estates may request documentation\u2014such as IDs, passports and work permits\u2014to determine access to the community, they may not enforce other laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes nixing things like detaining undocumented workers, profiling them, harassing them and performing things like “immigration status checks” .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wasserman outlined what is and is not permitted:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What estates are\u00a0allowed to do:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n