Distrustful and disappointing service from Real Estate Services

Wouldn’t even give them 1 star.

Started working with an agent here who was at first very helpful. My application and credit check was accepted for a lease agreement to rent an apartment. The agent had “negotiated” a reduced price on the rent and had said that the landlord had approved of it. After this happened she asked me to pay the deposit, 1st months rent and a lease write up fee of R1400 before even emailing me the lease agreement and that she wouldn’t until I paid. I emailed her back telling her that that is not within the legal framework which she then responded to with how many people had submitted applications at a higher price and been accepted and that I needed to pay all of this to secure the apartment?? (If someone wanted to pay more for the apartment rental surely the landlord would have just accepted that?).

She included in this email how important trust was and that in this industry onset trust issues are a problem and how this is worrying to her. I emailed her back and asked that she sends me: proof of approval from the landlord of my application being accepted, proof of acceptance at a lower rental cost, her FFC a number and certificate, proof of her registered trust account and the full legal name and registration number of the agency.

The next morning she WhatsApp’s me saying my application has been denied (she said this three times in one message and never responded to my emails).

When I question her on this she goes on to tell me that she was the one that accepted the application and that her landlord never had (uuuh surely that’s not allowed? 😂). Then says her landlord has rejected the application that morning? (So **** throughout saying the landlord was on board with all of this and tried to get me to pay all of this money without any consent from the landlord).

During all of this I saw that the apartment had been listed by another agent on property 24 who I reached out to. She immediately phoned me back and we spoke about this whole situation and she stipulated that this was not legal practice and that she would reach out to the landlord asking what was going on. She phones me back after speaking to the landlord and says that the landlord was unaware of my application and would have never agreed to a lower rent like what was proposed to me.

I go on to phone the manager of Real Estate Services to explain all of this and ask about their companies protocol. She says this is highly irregular and not how they practice business and that she will investigate. She asks me to email correspondence that I had with the agent from their business. I do all of this and I receive an email from the manager saying how it’s the landlord that changed their mind after the reduced rent rate was proposed and she’s sorry for the inconvenience.

So the agent that I was working with told me the landlord had approved my application then told me the landlord didn’t accept it the day after I asked her for her credentials and proof of acceptance from the landlord (she “couldn’t provide proof because it was agreed on a phone conversation” whilst in the same WhatsApp conversation saying she that she approved my application not the landlord?).

She tried to get me to pay nearly R22k without any proof of a lease agreement and then tried to use scare tactics to get me to pay? When I questioned her on this she said she would have paid me back? (Highly doubtful). I had her manager tell me that their business does not operate like this and then emails me to say sorry for the inconvenience the landlord changed their mind (based on something they never knew anything about?).

I will never go through this agency again, their practices are highly *********, unprofessional and do not work within South African legislation.

I searched for the agent on the PPRA and she did not exist.

Said agent tried to get me to pay a lot of money without any lease agreement then went back on her word when questioned.

The whole transaction of this situation was WHACK to put it lightly.

Terrible business conduct, so unhelpful, agent became rude and defensive and was being dishonest throughout this whole process.