***** and *****ing

We have engaged Hester Joubert from All Phase Properties to manage a significant number of properties for us in the last few years. We have started to experience significant challenges in the last year or two with tenants who used to pay on time, suddenly not being able to pay, paying late or just not paying at all. This started to happen across a number of our units, resulting in a loss of rental income. Hester constantly indicated that she was struggling with the tenants not paying but that she listed these tenants with TPN. Eventually she would indicate that she will need to replace them with new tenants as she cannot recover the outstanding rent. This usually resulted in a few months of not receiving any rental income due to the placement of new tenants. Most recently, we approach one of these tenants who, according to Hester was behind schedule for a few months already and confronted them on why they are not paying rent. The tenant indicated that they were renting directly from the owner (Hester Joubert!!) and that all their rent were paid up to date and that they have never being late with their payments. We asked them for bankstatements to proof this. On further investigation, it turned out that:

1. Hester presented herself as the owner of our unit 2. She increase the rent with the tenants but did not tell us about the new arrangements, pocketing the difference for herself. 3. Told us that the tenants was behind schedule when in fact they have paid on time ever since they moved in 4. Did not attend to any of their request for maintenance and repair 5. Have not transferred their deposit to a Trust account but had it paid into her own account and used the money for her own purposes. 6. Upon confronting Hester with this information she constantly had excuses for not answering her phone (i.e. In-laws in serious car accident, Hester herself in hospital, internet not working, her email not working etc. etc.)

Upon further investigation this situation also occurred with our properties. Hester's modus operandi is to notify owners that rent is late, when in fact rent was paid on time into Hester's own account and then consumed for personal use. She buys time by indicating that she has listed the non-paying tenants with THP (when in fact she did not). Rental deposits are also not paid into a Trust account as required by law but also into Hester's own account. When we requested Hester to repay the deposits she could not do that and constantly provides excuses but never deliver on those excuses and no monies get repaid. Hester also charged us for repairs at our properties but we only now found out that some of our properties are in dire need of repairs, to the extend that we have incurred substantial losses in trying to catchup with repairs. Heser's husband used to do the repairs at most of our properties. Taking into consideration the lack of repairs that were done, a detailed investigation is now under way to reconcile our charges to the actual maintenance that was done.

In further investigation, it was found that this situation also happened with a number of other of Hester's clients - which will soon tell their story here as well as they all follow a common thread.

We have incurred losses of close to R100 000 in a very short period of time due to a number of things, rental monies taken by Hester per above, rental deposits not paid into a trust account and then consumed for personal needs, no maintenance being done on units however being charged for repairs. We are still waiting for Hester to repay the outstanding monies.

This is the service that we received from Hester after helping her get her business of the ground. We referred a lot of our friends to her as well in order to assist her and now they have experienced the same - loss of rental income, damage to properties due to no inspections, rental deposits not deposited in a Trust account and ongoing lies and empty promises.