South Africans go to the polls on Wednesday 4 November 2026 in local government elections that will decide who runs every metro, district and local municipality in the country — and in the weeks before election day, another verdict on the country's 257 municipalities lands quietly in the background.
The Electoral Commission has certified 136 790 candidates to contest the vote. And in the weeks before election day, the Auditor-General's audit report for the 2025-26 financial year is due — built on annual financial statements municipalities had to submit by 31 July.
The last full verdict, tabled in Parliament in June 2026, was sobering. Only 39 municipalities — 15% of the total — achieved clean audits. Thirty-eight municipalities (15%) have regressed since 2020-21, and between them they account for 24% of total local government expenditure. Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke noted that residents and businesses "continue to experience unreliable service delivery, environmental hazards and deteriorating infrastructure", and that the audit outcomes of the eight metros — home to most of the country's highest-value residential property — "continue to decline".
There were green shoots: unqualified audit opinions rose to 61%, the highest level in roughly a decade, and 98% of municipalities submitted their financial statements on time. But an unqualified opinion means the numbers are broadly credible. A clean audit means the numbers are credible and the municipality is managing its money and performance well. That gap is where home buyers should be paying attention.
Why this matters for your biggest purchase
When you buy a home, you also buy into a municipality. Water supply, electricity distribution, sewage, refuse removal, roads and streetlights are all municipal functions — and their failure is expensive for homeowners. Burst water pipes, unmaintained roads, and unreliable electricity mean solar panels, boreholes, water tanks and security top-ups: real money that erodes the return on what is, for most South Africans, their single largest investment.
Well-run municipalities also tend to hold property values better. Where services are reliable and finances are managed, buyers keep coming, and resale stays liquid. Where a town's finances collapse, the opposite happens — a point underlined by recent Lightstone data showing Johannesburg homeowners facing a slow buyer's market in which selling can take a long time. Weak governance is not the only factor in a market like that, but it is one buyers consistently price in.
There is a transaction-level risk too: no property transfer can be registered without a municipal rates clearance certificate, which confirms the seller's municipal account is up to date. In dysfunctional municipalities, simply issuing that certificate can take far longer than anyone planned for — one more reason to understand the property transfer process before you sign anything.
What to check before you buy
- Look up the municipality's audit outcome. The Auditor-General publishes per-municipality breakdowns on its MFMA 2024-25 reports page — a disclaimer or adverse opinion is a red flag worth knowing about.
- Ask for the municipal account history. When you make an offer, your conveyancer will check the seller's rates account; ask early so surprises surface before you've paid a deposit.
- Walk or drive the suburb at different times of day. Water tankers, skip-strewn pavements and dead streetlights tell you what the audit report says in bureaucratic language.
- Price the backups. If the area's services are shaky, work out what backup systems (tank, inverter, generator) would cost you — and factor that into your offer.
What to watch next
The 2025-26 audit report lands in the coming weeks — expect municipal finances to be front and centre of the 4 November campaign as a result. For buyers, the practical takeaway is simple: the price of a home is on the listing; the cost of the municipality is in the audit. Check both.
Figures as at 21 September 2026. Sources: Auditor-General South Africa, Consolidated General Report on Local Government (MFMA 2024-25), tabled June 2026; SAnews reporting on the tabling (24 Jun 2026); Moneyweb (21 Sep 2026) on the 2025-26 audit cycle and 4 November election; IEC and SAnews on the certified candidate count; BusinessTech (8 Sep 2026, citing Lightstone) on the Johannesburg buyer's market.