John Webber
About John
John began his career in Bloemfontein before moving to Johannesburg to join EFK Tucker as head of their Conveyancing department. In November 2000 John joined Hofmeyr Herbstein and Gihwala (now Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr) as an Associate, was promoted to Senior Associate in 2001, and became a Director in 2003. John was the National Practice Head for Real Estate Law & Conveyancing practice during 2017-2020.
Areas of expertise
Experience
Involved from the outset of the Waterfall mixed use development, where John attends to the establishment of new townships and all matters relating to the registration of long term leases of both commercial and residential property (in excess of 7000 properties).
Attended to the establishment of in excess of 75 new townships which includes more than 34,000 erven. New township includes all of the townships created in the Waterfall mixed use development in Midrand.
Involved in the transfer of 4,000 residential units from the City of Johannesburg to the current occupants of such rental housing stock in terms of the Regularisation and Transfer of Ownership Programme (RETRO) being run by the City of Johannesburg and the Gauteng Provincial Government: Department of Housing. Involved in the transfer of 2,500 erven in Cosmo City on behalf of the City of Johannesburg and the Cosmo City Joint Venture.
Acted on behalf of both the Provincial Government: Gauteng and private developers in the delivery of RDP houses and has attended to more than 12,500 transfers to beneficiaries of new houses in terms of the RDP housing subsidy scheme.
Acted for Lephalale Solar (RF) (Pty) Limited in relation to the land issues for its Solar Facility for Exxaro Coal; SolarAfrica Sun Central Holdings (Pty) Limited in relation to its development of a 300MVa solar facility ((over three 100MVa phases); AMEA Power Limited in relation to the land issues for its Doornhoek Solar Facility; and Arcelor Mittal SA Limited in relation to the land issues for its Vanderbijlpark Solar Facility.
Niche and specialised development and redevelopment of properties across all sectors.
The Waterfall City Management Company (Pty) Limited, Attacq Limited, Hyprop investments Limited, Investec Property (Pty) Limited, Balwin Properties Limited, TUHF Limited, Context Property Solutions (Pty) Limited, Nedbank CPF (Affordable Housing Division), Rand Leases Properties (Pty) Limited, Equites Property Fund Limited, Century Property Developments (Pty) Limited, Atterbury Property Developments (Pty) Limited, Johannesburg Financial Securities (Pty) Limited group and its subsidiaries, the Cosmo City Joint Venture, the Gauteng Provincial Government: Department of Human Settlements and the Gauteng Partnership Fund.
Provided comprehensive legal counsel for the strategic land assembly required to establish a new tailings storage facility near Fochville on behalf of Far West Gold Recoveries (Pty) Ltd. This included securing pipeline servitudes for transporting mine slurry and waste materials from reprocessed mine dumps to the retreatment plant, and from there to the newly developed Tailings Storage Facility.
Advised Ergo Mining on the acquisition of the Knights processing plant and the adjacent land.
Recognition
- Chambers Global 2024 - 2026 ranked John in Band 1 for real estate.
- Chambers Global 2021–2023 ranked John in Band 2 for real estate and in Band 3 in 2019–2020.
- The Legal 500 EMEA 2021–2025 recommended him as a leading individual for real estate.
Credentials
Education
- Registered with the Legal Practice Council
- BCom, University of the Free State
- LLB, University of South Africa (UNISA)
- Dip (Corporate Law), University of Johannesburg
- Year of admission as an attorney and conveyancer: 1999
- Admission as a notary public: 2007
LANGUAGES
- English
