An OHS prohibition notice on a building stops people using it until an inspector from the Department of Employment and Labour is satisfied the hazard is fixed. The notice may be served on the tenant, but the repair often belongs to the landlord. Neither can reopen the building alone.
That is exactly what happened in Soweto in October, to the department that enforces the law. It is the clearest example a landlord or facilities manager in South Africa is likely to get of how a prohibition notice plays out in a leased building.
What happened at the Soweto Labour Centre
The department's own OHS inspectors "prohibited the occupancy/usage" of the Soweto Labour Centre at No. 2 Khumalo Road, Orlando West, after finding the building non-compliant. The department announced it in a media advisory, republished by Labour Guide with the date 26 October 2026. Inspectors served three documents: a prohibition notice, a contravention notice and an improvement notice.
The department, as tenant, paused operations "until the issues raised are permanently corrected". It is engaging the landlord through the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI), which it calls "the custodian of all government leases". It said the premises "will be inaccessible until the building is confirmed compliant by our OHS Inspectors".
Clients were sent to the Maponya Thusong Service Centre and the Randburg and Roodepoort labour centres. No reopening date is given, and the department says updates will come through its own website and social media. Nothing published so far says what the inspectors found or names the landlord.
What is an OHS prohibition notice?
A prohibition notice is the order that stops use. Under section 30(1) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, an inspector may act where an act threatens anyone's health or safety. The inspector may "in writing prohibit that employer from continuing or commencing with the performance of that act". In Soweto it stopped occupancy of the whole building. Section 30(1)(d) says a prohibition may be revoked by an inspector, in writing, once arrangements satisfactory to the inspector have been made to remove the threat.
The contravention and improvement notices are different documents. The advisory does not say what either required. The notices themselves are the documents to read, item by item, because they are what the inspector will check the building against. Fixing the item behind the prohibition notice is not the same as answering the other two.
Whose problem is the repair?
The notice goes to whoever the inspector serves. In an occupied building that is often the employer working there, which is usually the tenant. The repair goes to whoever the lease makes responsible for that part of the building.
That is our reading, and the Soweto case shows it working. The tenant received the notices, closed its own office and moved its staff. The fix runs through the landlord, by way of DPWI, because DPWI holds the lease.
For a private landlord the chain is shorter but the gap is the same. Take each item on each notice and put the lease clause next to it. Where the clause is clear, the work has an owner. Where it is not, settle it in writing before any contractor is appointed, or the building stays shut while two parties argue.
Ask one more question of the lease: what happens to rent while the tenant cannot occupy. A closure with no reopening date is when that clause gets read for the first time.
What reopens the building?
In practice, an inspector, in writing, under section 30(1)(d). The Soweto advisory is explicit that the building reopens when the department's OHS inspectors confirm it is compliant, not when the landlord says the work is done.
So the work has to produce evidence the inspector can accept. That means a record of what was done against each item on each notice, who did it and when, with any certificates the work requires. A contractor who cannot document the work is a second visit waiting to happen.
The contractor's own compliance matters as well. Depending on the scope, the repair may itself be construction work, with its own appointments under the Construction Regulations. A firm without a current letter of good standing is the wrong firm to send into a building that has just failed an inspection.
The cost of a closed building
The department's advisory shows the cost even for a large employer. It moved staff to neighbouring offices, sent clients to three other centres and leaned on its digital portals. A private tenant with one building has none of those options.
For the landlord the cost is a building earning nothing and a tenant with a grievance. The longer the gap between the notice and the appointed contractor, the bigger both get. Most of that gap is usually the argument over who pays, which is why the lease reading comes first.
On Monday
If you let buildings, ask each tenant in writing whether it has received any OHS notice in the past twelve months, and ask for a copy. If you manage a building that has just received one, send it to the landlord the same day and list every item against the lease clause it falls under.
Arabella Infrastructure Solutions is a Johannesburg-based building maintenance and construction company, open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, that verifies the contractors it sends to fix a building. When the inspector comes back, the firm that did the work can prove its own compliance, and the landlord has one accountable relationship for the repair. How that works is on the client page.
