Question posted in the Landlord Tenant Law category relating to Gauteng
Good day, I am currently facing an horrific rental experience and am on my way to the Rental Housing Tribunal if the breaches in the rental contract are not remedied after sending my landlord a letter. I have reason to believe that her husband is not a registered property manager, yet they charge us property manager fees. We have been renting from them now for 7 months, upon which their conduct has left my partner and I to be subjected to illegal disposal of human feces in the garden on 3 occasions and have cow dung lying around the perimeter of our house for a month and a week now, not even 20 meters from our house. They also do not allocate our rental payments, and send us what looks like fraudulent statements and invoices, and my partner is getting notifications that his credit record is being affected as a result of their malpractice. They refuse to provide us with proof of our 2month deposit being transferred into an interest bearing account, they have not provided us with a copy of our lease agreement, nor have they done any maintenance as per our move-in check requests. Their former tenant was still occupying our home for 2 days with their belongings and were not moved out on the date we moved in and the landlord and her husband "property manager" did not even have the decency to notify us prior to having knowledge of this the night before. They made it our problem. We helped their former tenant move out so that we could legally move into our new home. The landlord left the house in the most unsanitary condition and I had to endure scrubbing dog feces off the tiles in the house as she refused to clean the property. I was also sexually harassed by her husband in our home while he was "acting" as the property manager and am just at my wits end with the level of unsafe living conditions they have subjected us to.. I am currently in trauma counseling as a result of his violation and their inhumane treatment towards us, and cannot believe that people can be so cruel and inhumane. They are reporting non-payment of rent to credit bureas through a TPN accounting system even though we pay, and I fear this is gonna cause that we will not be able to "qualify" for a new place to rent in the event that we may need to move as a result of this horrific inhumane experience. Are you able to guide me as to where and how do we proceed with such a situation in the event as I have never been to the rental housing tribunal, and am not sure what route to take in order to get this fixed as a result of their malpractice? Your guidance would be greatly appreciated, as I also have had bad experiences with attorneys who don't advise to help people, but to take money, and just want to ensure I am a little "educated" on such a complex matter as I cannot afford any more abuse at this moment in time. Apologies for the honesty, as I mentioned, I am at my wits end.