No regard for tenants or the law

Good for landlords, but TENANTS BEWARE. 1. THEY WILL WITHHOLD YOUR DEPOSIT *******LY AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. An extremely unfair "exit inspection" was conducted without us, the tenants, being present. On the day we moved out, we said we wanted to bring in a cleaner to clean the unit, and the person conducting the inspection (a family member of the landlord) told us "not to worry" and that "everything looks great". Then I received an e-mail with an inspection form I had never seen that was completed without us present, and I was just expected to sign it and agree for them to deduct almost R2000 from my deposit to clean a 2-bed townhouse? I asked for an unbiased inspection to take place while I was present, I was ignored. I escalated this to their "customer service" (spoiler alert, there is no customer service), Taryn and Marizel, who refused to help me or offer me any information. They said this was with their legal department. I have never heard from their legal department. I indicated multiple times that this was ******** and unfair and they had NOTHING to say. In the end, the landlord could make whatever deductions he wanted and there was nothing I could do because Preferental was holding the deposit. Marizel and Taryn kept quiet the whole time during emails between myself, while the landlord punitively went back on his word over and over again and didn't care at all that he was acting ********ly. When I finally agreed to pay the amount "under great duress" (I explicitly stated that in my email), then Marizel happily rep**** with forms to be completed for claims against the deposit.

2. During the rental period, Preferental would invoice me twice a month. Once for the rental amount and again for the utilities. This would be fine, except for the fact that they invoiced me randomly in the month for utilities. Not in the beginning of the month, sometimes in the second week, sometimes the third week. This made it IMPOSSIBLE for me to manage my money during the month, but I always made a plan to pay the bills. Despite always paying, we still received letters of demand for unpaid utilities. We were tenants, not owners, so no clue what Preferental was doing with the money we were paying towards utilities.

I've seen on Facebook and on Google reviews that my experience is not unique and withholding the deposit is a common complaint with them. They bank on the fact that you won't take legal action because it's time consuming and expensive.