A 48-year-old Goodwood mom is barking mad after a pavement tree toppled and crushed her car and the City of Cape Town refuses to pay.
Nawaal Dawood said her husband Ebrahim parked outside a mosque, where he was attending Friday prayers, in CJ Langenhoven Street in July 2015.
When he came out of mosque, he found a massive trunk on top of the roof of his white Toyota Corolla, which caused damages to the value of R47 952.84
Nawaal says they are still devastated and angry and believe the City should take responsibility for the toppled municipal tree.
The owner of a house in the street had apparently sent countless requests to the City asking them to remove the tree at number 105, which they had chained down, positioning the chain towards the road so that it would not fall onto their property, but nobody came out.
Nawaal says: “The City uses legal jargon to get them out of taking responsibility for tree maintenance in the Goodwood area.
“We sent in a claim with different quotes but it was repudiated. We then made an appeal for them to review the matter, but their final answer was that they were not responsible for the maintenance.”
The couple’s Toyota, which was not insured, is now rusted and standing in the yard with damaged shocks and CV joints.
According to a ruling, in a letter dated 1 March this year, the City’s legal appeal authority states: “There is no indication that the City’s failure to do maintenance as required by the Tree Management Policy caused the damage to the vehicle. The damage appears to be as a result of the adverse weather conditions on the day.”
The family now believes their only recourse is the Western Cape High Court but they do not have the money to pay for legal costs.
Nawaal adds: “I would just like to make the general public out there aware of how the City, which is supposed to ‘Work for You’, has let us down.”
The City was not able to respond to the family or the Daily Voice at the time of going to print last night.