Masakhe 02_DIGITAL PAPERTURN - Flipbook - Page 8
to Cape Infanta in the mid-1980s.
The work was intense, requiring him
and his team to navigate not just
complex valuations but also personal
attachments to the land. He recalls
one landowner, a “wild doctor from
Oudtshoorn,” who was devastated
to be losing his coastal property. “He
was always swimming naked in the
ocean,” Marten recounts with a smile.
“He once convinced me to go with
him. It was freezing cold, and a huge
wave took me under.” He doesn’t say,
“I feared for my life,” but I hear the
words ringing in my ears. “Finally,”
he continues, “I popped up like a
cork and landed naked on the reef.”
The hair-raising encounter was a
vivid reminder of the human element
behind every valuation report.
In another landmark case, he was
hired by the oil industry to challenge
a valuation on their harbour tank
leases. Instead of merely arguing
numbers, Marten took another route,
poring over the history of the harbour
itself. He uncovered a technical error
from 1947 concerning the original
land reclamation, proving the land
fell under a different municipal
jurisdiction than assumed, which
fundamentally altered the basis
for the rates charged. It was a
masterclass in his core philosophy:
that a true valuation is found not in a
formula, but in exhaustive research.
By 1982, Marten left Syfrets to
co-found Landmark (Cape)(Pty) Ltd,
before buying out his partners and
establishing Marten & Associates in
1993. But his most enduring legacy,
and what Marten calls his “proudest
achievement”, was what was forged
outside of his private practice. He had
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