Terrible Experience with Remax Team Flip Agent

We have lodged a complaint against one of Remax SA agents with the Property Practitioners Regulatory Authority and Consumer Protection Agency. We believe that this step is necessary considering the flippant disregard that we have received from him and his team regarding an issue with a letting arrangement we had with him.

My wife and I signed a lease agreement for an apartment in Mooikloof Ridge, with Ashley Storm. The agreement we had with him and the owner was that they would have moved out by the 15th of this month so we can start moving out gradually from where we are and move in by the 29th of August.

We followed up throughout and he kept shifting dates because the owner was giving excuses. And we were understanding because it wasn’t yet month end. We paid R16,600 which was the total amount we were to pay. Note that we were the ones reaching out to find out all the changes even up until a few days to move in. Later he told us the owner won’t be moving out of the property after all because he is having issues with his partner due to a divorce. This was expectedly shocking to us.

We asked him to immediately work on alternatives for us. Ashley went silent again saying he would fix the issue. We reached out again and he said the owner is now back on track to giving us the keys and expected that to be some kind of reassurance. We expressed to him how uncomfortable that sounds especially in a divorce situation and insisted that we want another place. He insisted that he would get the key. We messaged one day to move in, early enough to let him know that we would have expected to see messages regarding alternatives or updates about what he is doing about the situation. Note that we had our moving company booked for the next day.

Even the internet company had been cancelled at least three times. We then told Ashley how dissapointing his service has been. Instead of immediately telling us he has the key or an alternative we need to go view, he says we wanted to argue. That he will be getting the key by 4pm. I told him again that we are not interested in staying in a property with such uncer*****ies especially when we can’t even count on our agent to be preemptive and to initiate followup with us. He then said he has a backup. After insisting, he agreed to let us go view it. He said he will give updates about it in 10mins. He never did. It became clear that Ashley is just concerned about not losing the commission on the house because we had paid all the required payments for moving in. It also sounds like he doesn’t recognize the impact of this hiccups on all we need to do to move out of where we are.

The agent at our old place isn’t going to allow us stay a day longer just because Ashley was willing to gamble. It was annoying that he couldn’t get this complexity and thinks he can speak to us like we are just being agitated for no reason. We spoke to Dane at the office and he essentially took sides with Ashley. Ashley again said 4pm key collection isn’t the case anymore but that we should pack our things and come move in on the day as he would be there with the key. We later discovered from the alternative apartment we got that we even need to have registered at the Estate in order to even move in. Ashley never mentioned this. So, how was he even going to get us to move?

After we got an alternative, we asked Ashley for a refund since he claimed our lease wasn’t yet valid and we had no right to insist on the info we were requesting. He has since been pushing the timeline just like he did with the apartment. We did not have a refund immediately and had to arrange to pay for a new place. Which means we had paid rent and deposits twice. When I left a review with this complaint on their Facebook page, I was blocked. They later sent a refund of R12,380 and R2,400 separately which makes a total of R14,780. Leaving us with a R1800 balance not yet received. As at 2 or 3 days to when we had to move out, Ashley and Dane insisted that they were only doing us a favour by offering to give us keys early and that our lease was not effective until the 1st of September. When we didn’t see any hopes of getting access on the 29th, we requested to cancel so we can find another place. And it seems they wish to penalize us for cancelling and not accepting to risk not having a place to move into.