This chapter focuses on the experience of two vulnerable women and explores whether the transformative thrust, ultimately embodied in the property clause, has become a lived reality or whether it has remained a theoretical concept only. Relevant here is the Extension of Security of Tenure Act with respect to Mrs Malan and Mrs Phillips, and the role and function of land ownership compared to the rights of these two vulnerable persons. Whereas Mrs Phillips was initially successful with her informal occupational right and opposed an eviction application effectively, the Constitutional Court finally found in favour of the landowner. The eviction application was set aside by the Land Claims Court with respect to Mrs Malan, but was reinstated on appeal. Ultimately, case law analysis indicates that the binary, hierarchical approach to land ownership and ‘lesser rights’ continues to dominate property paradigms. The transformative thrust of the property clause has remained elusive, despite measures promulgated specifically to protect vulnerable occupiers. The chapter provides some suggestions as to how changes within the land reform context and the re-conceptualisation of property law may be approached. Ultimately, a transformed property system – in light of South Africa’s colonial and apartheid history – is also in the public interest.

‘Expropriation without compensation’ has crystallised in South African discourse into a symbolic rejection of inherited privilege, with calls for a constitutional amendment that presupposes a legal constraint on the property regime. The intentions of the lawmakers in the ‘property clause’ debates of the 1990s were to craft what I term a ‘mandate for transformation’. Yet the state has failed to override property owner interests in favour of the landless. Second, the battle over ‘expropriation without compensation’ since 2018 has not been about what is written in the Constitution. Third, the counterpoint to the fixation on state power to acquire property is the right of citizens to gain access to land on an equitable basis. This under-developed idea languishing within the property clause offers the basis for constitutional claims for a right to land. Inverting attention from state powers to enact reform to citizens’ powers to claim rights, it could serve as a focal point for emancipatory politics grounded in real struggles.