Through a series of intricate informal processes and human-centric institutional arrangements, beneficiaries of South African government-subsidized housing force formally registered properties into informality. Sandile Mbatha explores the concept of informality in relation to how such beneficiaries challenge predominant understandings of property relations. These practices are embedded in complex urban tenure dynamics that prevail in post-colonial societies; societies, in which the state's imposition of predominantly western forms of tenure and property rights ignore the anthropological nature of housing.