As you are known by your name, so is a property known by theirs. As human names may change, in the event of, for example, marriage (or fame), so may a property name be subject to change.
A property is defined as the land, land and improvements, or improvements (in the case of sectional title or strata) that may be sold by the owner, to a purchaser.
Thus, where a property comprises various buildings, the property name would be an umbrella term for the individual buildings housed in that property.
Because of the above, building names may differ from property names. A good example of this is an office, retail or industrial park. E.g. Bletchley Park, housing Turing Building, Welchman Building and Tutte Building)
A property name does not have a standard format, and can be any one of:
- a conventional name – e.g. ABC Towers,
- the name of the tenant (where a single-tenant building or a building where a particular tenant/occupier enjoys naming rights),
- a combination of the tenant name and location,
- a street address,
- a street address and location combination,
- for vacant land: the erf or plot details (e.g. Erf 123), suburb and size of the land (e.g. 5,000 sqm),
The least reliable property name: properties named after tenants. As tenants change, and they do, this will trigger a change in the property’s name. Which can cause confusion.
Because of this, property names are not ideal unique identifiers.
