Heidi R

Karis properties rental and buy

I'm not one to give bad reviews as I know what it could mean for a business but I truly had one of the worst experiences with Karis properties White River so here it goes... We signed a lease agreement ( initially 6 months but negotiated it to be 9 months because moving with a one year old gets tough...) We moved in on the 1st of June 2025 and were getting our financials all in order because the home was also up for sale and we really loved it but as time went by, we started to feel like the agent could not be trusted. Chronologically...this happened May - signed lease Mid May - 2 weeks before we moved in, the agent contacted us and said the solar system could not be included anymore( mind you, we already gave notice on our previous rental and they already found new tenants) I will not give the reason they did not include the solar to protect the privacy of the owner but I do feel in this instance they could have just slightly adjusted the rent.... June - move in June to July - Viewing of possible buyers were allowed and agent organised with us but in one particular case, my son and I contracted swine flu and I had to cancel the viewing and the agent asked for the next day and I, at first, did not agree to it but the agent asked once more and that the client's husband needs to see it because he needs to go back to work overseas the day after and we then agreed and as anyone would understand, it's more than tough enough to make sure a home with a sick mother and child is clean and show ready. So the above is only two instances where we were not considered... August - The agent contacted me to ask if she could take a video of the home inside for only one Cape Town client. We agreed as we could understand that the client lives far away... Two days later we found that the video was used in property24 for commercial adverti*****t of the property... My son's photo's, his layout of his room and our home... ALL ON THE VIDEO! I did not give any permission for that and I was highly upset as any mother could imagine... I then sent the agent a message explaining this and I did not agree to this and she said they always do this with homes and she had never had any issues regarding this and I explained once more that I cannot accept it. She only made the video private and apologised and I did not accept her apology... End August.. We asked for an OTP to finally put an offer on the house and see what the OTP entailed and we were told there was a cash offer very near to the selling price and we said we definitely do not want to offer anything near the selling price and she then said she asked the owner to atleast look at our offer before she considers other offers. It did not make sense to me... why would the owner consider offer if we were not willing to offer the selling price then...mind you... the place is still on FOR SALE... The agent asked us then if we would be looking at other homes and again we trusted her but she never came back to us with viewing other homes. Needless to say, we contacted other agents... During this time, people stabling their horses on the property we rented were given strict instructions that they were not allowed to talk to us... this was after we tried to make friends with them because we thought that should we buy the property, we would like to make improvements for them as an investment opportunity... There was also a new borepump installed that we wrote numerous times to the agent about because it took 3 WEEKS for the pump to fill a 10 000 litre tank... we were starting to get concerned because our 10 000 litre tank needed to fill up before the horses 2 x 10 000 litre tank would fill up and as anyone would know... horses CANNOT go without water... we really did try to communicate with the principal, with admin but to NO avail... no reply from the principal and a very hardheaded admin... We cancelled our lease early as we decided on another home, with another agent and yet even with all the inconsiderations caused they still want to push clauses in your face that you need to pay the rent for two months if you move... I could understand that if they were atleast considerate but with no solar, which we signed the lease on, allowing all their viewings and a show day, making sure horses on the property had water, which wasn't even our responsibility, a pathetic water pump, and even a few problems like a ceiling tearing apart, taps not having handles and the wooden deck and garage door being serviced and fixed by us, one would think that they would atleast have some consideration for tenants and possible home buyers... The home is overpriced... WAAAAAY overpriced! The agent seems to be known for that, the only problem for her with small towns is that word spread fast... To put things into perspective, we bought a property on a security estate( with two fully equipped homes on it on 2000 sqm) for a million rand less than the small 3 bedroom home 1300sqm property they offered us... This agency lost a sale due to an unstrustworthy agent and their lack of sympathy for their clients. I did try to reason with the admin lady regarding the fact that we did not even receive the use of the solar power and they charged us for electricity we will not be using but the only consideration that was made was to give us back the electricity deposit and did not address any other issues I emailed her about... When I emailed the principal, I have not, to this day even received a reply from her and I actually emailed her as a courtesy for her to k now what is going on in her business but not a word back... There were many other problems that are highly private that happened that I shared with her but yet... as I said... not a word back... My final word is that as a mother, I never signed any permission page to let my rental home be commercially advertised with my son's photo in it! I could have made this a lot worse but I am not going to stoop to their level of professionalism or lack thereof... I would have just expected for them to pay back atleast our deposit of half of it. That we could accepted because as far as we went, we were inconvenienced... Good luck but please do consider renting or buying from other agents... Agent: Cindy Robinson Agency: Karis Properties