Landlords : Be Aware and AVOID Host Agents Cape Town.

Host Agents acted as Airbnb agents of my retirement property at Dolphin Beach Estate since March 2021. I lived in Australia and retired back to South Africa in April 2024. My unit was dishevelled, greasy and dirty. 50% of the items on the inventory were missing or damaged. All three bedroom carpets on the second floor were stained and dilapidated. Before I arrived back I had to pay carpet cleaners a hefty amount of money for a " so called" deep cleaning of the carpet. All the carpets will have to be replaced. Items like a coffee machine and a set of steak knives vanished from the kitchen. The Hoover vacume cleaner and Webber BBQ were non functional. A new electric top oven was installed in place of the previous oven without consulting me or getting quotations and my rusted patio furniture was replaced by equally poorly chosen furniture. The damages caused by Host Agent's poor management amounted to between R50,000 and R60,000 . Since I have been back, I had one manager of Host Agents witnessing the chaos. He was not my property manager but tried to address my complaints with the management team. I have been waiting for more than 10 weeks and had no ackowledgement from them. There was no offer of compensation. I want to warn property owners about Host Agents. Their commission fees of 34.5% per booking is exorbitantly high. They cover themselves in the contract through a clause that if a third party is involved doing the booking, 17.5% will be paid to the third party, as well as 17.5% to them. My investment property's income betwwen 2021 and 2024 couldn't cover the Levies and Rates and Taxes I had to pay. I have been deeply disappointed by Host AGent's unprofessional conduct, dyshonesty, incompetence and mismanagement.