I have a question for the legal experts. If i own a house and i stop paying my electricity bill then Eskom cuts me off directly, not the entire community, so question 1 is, why cant Eskom cut off power to non payers individually like in my area and question 2 is.. if i sell my house but my municipal bill is in arrears then I have to settle those arrears through the transferring attorney.. So im assuming that even though a household in Soweto does'nt pay his bill.. it will eventually get paid. I just sold a plot and the municipality forced me to pay R2500 'just incase' there was any unpaid fees , even though on their system i'm up to date it still had to be paid with them agreeing to refund me after the new owner starts getting billed.
Or is the system just different there?
If you are an Eskom Direct customer and you do not pay, Eskom can switch you off individually at your connection.
If you are a munic customer Eskom does not have any control off your power supply. In this case the munic is Eskom's customer and you are a customer of the munic, not Eskom. In such a case Eskom wouldn't even know if you are in arrears or not and any any event they can only switch off the main feed into that munic, therefore everyone on that sub-station, regardless of whether they paid, or not. If you do not pay, the munic switches you off.
Your account issue is with the munic, not Eskom and your bill with the munic would include rates and taxes. When selling a property, it is a standard practice by the munic to take an amount to make sure they are covered "just in case" as you call it.