Natrent Horror Story

<p> </p> <p>Natrent and the people I dealt with there, whom I shall all name in my complaint below, are as far as I am concerned the most *********** and unprofessional team of ***** I have ever come across in any personal or professional capacity in my entire life.</p> <p>I will list all the facts related to this matter thoroughly and chronologically in an attempt to avoid getting the usual time wasting response from Pierre that he “will look into it.”</p> <p>We moved into Unit 14, Eagles Nest in the Gleneagle Estate on 1 December 2014. We were assisted by Godfrey, one of Natrent’s agents. The previous tenants, who had lived there for seven years prior to us moving in, moved out a few hours before we moved in and the unit was an utter dump. We waited a few minutes for Godfrey to arrive and he handed over our one set of keys to us and left without completing his own checklist of the unit. We completed our checklist of the unit and sent a copy to Godfrey, never to receive confirmation of receipt or a signed copy back in the two years I lived there. We had 2 more sets of keys made for the unit as we were three people living there. A few days later we received a call from Chris asking when he could come and paint and repair the unit. Chris came in early January 2015 and repaired and painted the walls, except for behind a free-standing wine rack I had adjacent to the one wall, which he did not paint behind.</p> <p>On numerous occasions during my two year stay we requested Natrent to replace the urine stained carpet in the main bedroom, as left by the previous tenants, but we were told by Belinda to just have it washed and send them the invoice. They did however pay back our money for the carpet cleaning as per invoice.</p> <p>After a year and a half of living there and reporting the broken and leaking shower since the day we moved in, Elanza from CEM gave me a call and came to repair and replace the broken and leaking shower as well as repair the resulting water damage from the leak. These repairs were done on the 17th of July 2016.</p> <p>On the 25th of November 2016 we gave notice that we would be moving out by the 20th of December as the tenants living with me were immigrating at the end of December 2016. We were aware of the fact that we had to give two months notice, but circumstances made this impossible. Thus we paid our rent for the month of December 2016 as well as for January 2017 although we in fact did move out on the 10th of December in fact.</p> <p>Then we requested that a Natrent agent come and do the inspection report after we had vacated the unit and Les came and did the inspection with us on the 23rd of December 2016. He told us he does not consider what damage was done prior to us moving in, he only needed to compile a list of faults for repair which would then be compared to the inspection report done before we had moved in. We informed him that no such report had been done by Natrent prior to us moving in and the only existing report was completed and sent to Natrent by us, the tenants. This meant that the last time an inspection report was completed on Unit 14 by a Natrent agent was nine years prior to us moving out. After being unprofessionally “assisted” by Les we reluctantly signed his inspection report and were promised that our original inspection report would be taken into consideration when their calculations are done on paying back our deposit.</p> <p>On 18 January we sent in a query regarding our deposit to Marie, to which she rep**** that we must send her our banking details. Hoping that this meant they were finalising our query and would pay back our deposit within a reasonable amount of time.</p> <p>On the 7th of February we received an invoice from Marie stating that in fact we owed Natrent money because our January rent was never paid and the cost of the repairs to the Unit was R 11 895.00. This all amounted to us owing Natrent R 6495.00 and not receiving our deposit back.</p> <p>The same issues that were never repaired by Natrent when we moved in were now our responsibility to pay for when we moved out. This included the carpet which now according to Marie had to be replaced, the wall that Chris never painted and various other broken or damaged odds and ends which we reported in our very first inspection report. It was obvious to me then that Les was as untruthful and he was unprofessional.<br />We rep**** back to Marie that we in fact did pay for January 2017 and sent her the proof of payment as proof thereof and asked to have this matter handed over to the person in charge.</p> <p>Our matter was handed over to Pierre and he responded on the 17th of March that our rent was indeed up to date and that he would investigate the costs of the repairs and come back to us.</p> <p>On the 28th of March we received an email from Pierre that he had taken a look at the inspection report, God only knows why this only happened now, and that Natrent will now pay us pack an amount of R 5145.00 from our deposit. A more than R 11 000 turnaround from the events of 7 February, going from us owing them R 6495.00 to them now promising to pay us back this portion of our deposit.</p> <p>We sent another email pointing out the other repairs on the invoice were noted as broken when we moved in and asked Pierre to look at them as well. After doing our calculations using the invoice sent to us for repairs and our first inspection sheet we came to a new amount of R 8 375.00 to be returned to us out of the original R 10 850.00 deposit.</p> <p>We received no further communication from Pierre or anybody at Natrent even after sending follow up emails in April and now in May 2017. As of today the 2nd of May 2017 we have not received one cent of our deposit back. I am of the opinion that would we not have argued this matter that Natrent would have kept our deposit and demanded us to pay them the R 6495.00 we apparently owed them. I also believe that I am not the first tenant this has happened to and neither will I be the last. As promised in our email dated today, 2 May 2017, should we not at the very least receive feedback from Natrent within the next week we are left with no other remedy than taking legal action against Natrent and would gladly assist all past or present tenants with similar complaints to be paid back what is due to them.</p> <p> </p> <p>Heinrich Hauptfleisch ********** <p>De Waal van Vuuren **********