Hijacked & derelict buildings, mapped.
South Africa has hundreds of illegally occupied buildings across its major cities. Many are fire traps. Most have no city action planned. Every entry here is sourced from official city records, court papers, or documented incidents.
23
Verified cases in this tracker
Sourced from court papers, city records, media
188
Total hijacked buildings estimated in Joburg
Per City of Johannesburg 2025 estimate
77
People killed — Usindiso fire, 2023
1
Successfully redeveloped in 9 years
Know Your Block
Enter your street or suburb to check for documented hijacked or derelict buildings within 2km.
Search covers the 23 documented cases in this tracker — not an exhaustive citywide database. See the notice below for coverage details.
Remington Court
Being MonitoredCorner Jeppe and Nugget Streets, Johannesburg CBD
The only hijacked building in Johannesburg successfully reclaimed and redeveloped. Converted to mana...
View full profile →M.O.T.H Building
Extreme RiskJohannesburg Inner City
Declared unsafe by city engineers. Court has instructed the City to relocate occupants to temporary ...
View full profile →Vannin Court
Extreme RiskJohannesburg Central Business District
Declared unsafe. A R45 million regeneration project was announced in 2017 — it collapsed and the bui...
View full profile →Casa Mia
Extreme RiskJohannesburg Inner City
Declared unfit for habitation. City has ordered occupants relocated but has not provided emergency a...
View full profile →Florence Nightingale Building
High RiskJohannesburg Inner City
Engineering reports state no maintenance done for years — severe structural deterioration. Court ord...
View full profile →Wimbledon Building
High RiskJohannesburg Inner City
Engineering reports state no maintenance done for years. Court order obtained. Building remains occu...
View full profile →Usindiso Building (2023 Fire Site)
Extreme RiskCorner Alberts and Delvers Streets, Marshalltown, Johannesburg
Site of the August 31 2023 fire that killed 77 people — South Africa's deadliest inner-city building...
View full profile →Delvers Building
High RiskDelvers Street, Johannesburg CBD
Declared unsafe. Scheduled for demolition in September 2024. Occupants evacuated. Building secured b...
View full profile →Jeppestown Building (2024 Fire)
Extreme RiskJeppestown, Johannesburg
August 2024 fire displaced 200 people and killed 4. Occurred less than a year after the Usindiso fir...
View full profile →Marshalltown Hazardous Building
Extreme RiskMarshalltown, Johannesburg (near Village Main Road and Loveday Road)
Inspected by MMC for Public Safety in December 2025. Internal shacks, illegal subdivisions, and mult...
View full profile →Express Building
High Risk44 Nugget Street, Johannesburg CBD
City-owned building — previously a school and a church — now derelict and illegally occupied. Broken...
View full profile →Platinum Place
Being MonitoredDoornfontein, Johannesburg
Formerly hijacked building in Doornfontein that was cleared of illegal tenants. Post-clearance inspe...
View full profile →Trafalgar Properties Buildings (Berea)
High RiskBerea, Johannesburg
Two apartment buildings in Berea owned by Trafalgar Properties subsidiaries — illegally occupied for...
View full profile →China Emporium / Xin Hua Block
Extreme Risk564 Anton Lembede Street, Durban CBD
Fire on 21 January 2022 injured 13 people. eThekwini obtained a court order after the owner failed t...
View full profile →Marikana Building — 44 Lancers Road
High Risk44 Lancers Road, corner University Avenue, Durban
City-owned building earmarked for social housing that became associated with unlawful activity. Ille...
View full profile →Problem Building — 85 Anton Lembede Street
High Risk85 Anton Lembede Street, Durban CBD
Explicitly identified in eThekwini annual reporting as a municipal bad-building intervention site. D...
View full profile →West End Building
High Risk516 Dr Pixley KaSeme Street, Durban CBD
City-owned building in eThekwini's problem building record. By late 2024 being discussed as a munici...
View full profile →DPWI Building — 104 Darling Street
High Risk104 Darling Street, Cape Town CBD
Approximately 30 residents in the three-storey building, some for more than two decades. Additional ...
View full profile →Government Building — 2 Keizersgracht Road, District Six
High Risk2 Keizersgracht Road, District Six, Cape Town
City of Cape Town issued fines to the National Department of Public Works over conditions at this si...
View full profile →DPWI Building — 1 Jan Smuts Drive, Maitland
High Risk1 Jan Smuts Drive, Maitland, Cape Town
Included in the same enforcement action as 2 Keizersgracht, with the City issuing fines to National ...
View full profile →Cissie Gool House (Former Woodstock Hospital)
High RiskOld Woodstock Hospital Complex, Mountain Road, Woodstock, Cape Town
One of Cape Town's most visible occupied public buildings. Approximately 900 people living in former...
View full profile →Ahmed Kathrada House (Former Helen Bowden Nurses Home)
High Risk1 Beach Road, Green Point, Cape Town
Approximately 800 people living in former nurses home since 2017. MPs condemned unsafe living condit...
View full profile →Boston Centre (Redeveloped)
Being Monitored85 Voortrekker Road, Boston, Bellville, Cape Town
Around 70 people evicted from this ten-storey building in September 2017 after the City declared it ...
View full profile →What is a hijacked building?
Criminal syndicates illegally occupy abandoned buildings — usually former offices vacated after apartheid — and rent rooms to people with nowhere else to go. Tenants pay rent to criminals, not legal owners.
Why can't the city evict them?
The Constitutional Court requires municipalities to provide temporary emergency accommodation before evicting people. Johannesburg has a 500,000-unit housing backlog and cannot fulfil this requirement at scale.
Why are they dangerous?
No running water, no legal electricity, open fires for cooking and heating, overcrowding, illegal internal shacks — all in structurally compromised buildings. The 2023 Usindiso fire killed 77 people.
Report a building
If you know of a hijacked or dangerous building not on this map, contact the City of Johannesburg's Emergency Line on 011 375 5911 or the Joburg Property Company at 011 217 4000.
Data integrity and legal notice
Data is sourced from City of Johannesburg GFIS audit records, court papers obtained through public reporting, official municipal revitalisation plans, and documented fire incidents. Properties are described according to their official legal or municipal status — for example, “subject to eviction proceedings” or “classified as derelict under municipal audit” — rather than asserted as fact by Odyssey Tools independently.
This data is aggregated solely from official municipal filings, public court documentation, and published journalistic sources. It does not constitute independent valuation, legal advice, or structural assessment by Odyssey AI Labs. This tracker covers a documented sample — the City of Johannesburg alone reports 188 active hijacked building cases citywide.