Tenant treated like we doing the Agent a favour by renting

I have been staying in a rental property managed by Just Property Claremont for the past two years and my lease will be coming to and end on 28 February 2018.

Over this period I have been frustrated in the way my wife and myself have been treated by the agent Kari Van Bosch, as well as her other associates that run this branch of Just Property. My wife and myself work in client facing roles in our respective professions, and find it quite disrespectful in the way we have been treated over the term of the lease.

As a tenant who has not missed a single payment over this period of my lease, as this is my obligation that I have committed toI have found I have found the agent wanting in their obligations to the tenant from the start of the lease.

My first experience of the lack of customer care or respect was when we just moved into the rental property in Claremont in March 2016, the previous tenants had pets and the carpets reeked of dog urine. The agents continued to stonewall us after several months of constant communication from our side trying to find out the solution to the problem. We just gave up on using the second bedroom as a place were someone could sleep, and have used it a storage space ever since, to this day it still reeks of dog urine, and still the agent Kari Van Bosch is "getting back to us".

Our second experience in October 2017, left me infuriated and at that point i decided to not renew the lease with this estate agent. During a routine maintenance call out it was decided that a few of the tiles in the lounge/dining area needed to replace. I was communicated by the agent as well as the contractor that it would take one day, and i had to put in personal leave to ensure that i was present while the job was being performed. The reason was two fold, firstly i wanted to ensure my valuables were safe and undamaged during the period of the maintenance and secondly I would be able to confirm the workmanship and work ethic of the contractor.

Needless to say the job took several days to complete, of which I had to take my annual leave and furthermore i was verbally abused by the contractor. On informing the agent, of the lack of care by the contractor for protecting my furniture during the job, and the lack of communication regarding how long the job would be? when is the expected completion date ? As I could not go from day to day informing my manager that i needed one more days leave because of the incompetence of the contractor that the agent hired. Kari still persisted with the contractor, and to this day the tile situation in the lounge/dining room has not been resolved. I have been courteous to make myself available to this contractor for about seven times over the course of the past few months so that he can make an assessment on the way forward.

The third experience, took place from the period August 2017 - January 2018. My wife had mistakenly left the stove on with cooking oil, which caused a fire and damaged the extractor fan. We then immediately reported it to the Kari, and informed we would replace the fan. Needless to stay every month for the entire period Kari, kept telling us we need to replace the extractor as soon as possible. Never mind that the old extractor fan that was destroyed in the fire never worked in the first place apart from the lights. We have replaced the extractor fan in January 2018 before we are expected to vacate the premises in February 2018.

The last incident , that has occurred at the end of January was my final boundary with this agency. To my surprise at the end of January 2018 i was billed R285 for a missing an appointment, at first i thought it must of been an incorrect billing and to my dismay it was not. The background , I had forgotten the agent was doing a general walkthrough in the month of December 2017, when the agent called me i had informed her i had forgotten and was at the mall 5mins away. The agent then informed me that they were unwilling to wait 5mins and it was okay she will come back later in the day to do the inspection, with no mention of us being billed a fee for her having to wait a few minutes.

When querying the R285 the agent informed us that they are billing for not being there as per the lease agreement, i quote from the email "It is common cutesy to reschedule an appointment if you are going to be late and to notify the person waiting for you" - Kari Van Bosch. The word should have been "courtesy" if you are confused about what "cutesy" means in the previous quote. How exactly are you supposed to inform a person that you are going to be late if you had forgotten you had the appointment in the first place?

To summarise my experience with this agency: If you want to rent from an agency that will talk down at you , treat you as if your complaints are stark raving mad and often ignore you, proactively point out your mistakes that you have taken responsibility for, never take responsibility for any mistake they have made, unwilling to show any good faith or care in dealing with you then go ahead and use this agency.