Hi My landlord has moved to Canada and w...

Asked by the Customer on 01-04-2015 09:29:16
Question posted in the Property Law category relating to Gauteng

Hi
My landlord has moved to Canada and we have leased the property through an agency. But the landlords mother in law is making my life hell.
We had a verbal agreement that if they wanted to sell, we would have first option.
Last week an agent from Remax brought prospective sellers to the house. Then they have been coming just about every day to take measurements etc.
I have refused them entry from this point as they do not even make appointments. The mother in law says she has power of attorney. But we are still waiting for the written proof of this.
The lease agreement that we signed, has 2 contradicting clauses and the clause where we have first option, was not put in the lease. As it was, the agent would not give us time to read through the lease as I am sure she knew about this.
Now they are refusing to hear my offer to purchase and have given us 2 months notice. We only moved in on the 1st of February 2015 and 2 months later, we get notice.
The first clause stated that if she intends to sell the property, she has to give us 6 months notice. She sent the agent to the house to tell us this and again we asked for first option. I was just ignored.
The problem now, is that nothing on the snag list has ever been fixed by the owner. For our own safety, we did it ourselves after having given a letter with notice period to fix problems that affect our daily lives. Nothing was done. We had to fix up locks that were completely broken and my daughter and Mom had cut themselves badly on one of the broken locks.
The owner is being so unreasonable and are now saying that the repairs are on us. We did give them a letter advising of the time to fix and nothing was done. They were going to give us 50% of the cost of locks etc, but today the agent says it has been reversed as they demand we give the mother in law a set of all the keys.
This i refused as she just pitches up at the house and expects my Dad to stand aside while she goes through the house looking in cupboards and personal effects.

Can I refuse by law to give keys to her and where do I find a legal binding clause for this

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