Disappointing Agent from Vered Estates Dunkeld

From January to June 2021 I rented a garden cottage through Vered Estates and my agent was Catherine Brookstone. This agent did not behave as an agent but rather as a mouthpiece for the landlord. Upon moving out of the cottage, the landlord set a date for her, the agent and myself to have a “moving out inspection” on a particular day. I started moving my things a few days before this inspection date (as most people do) and when it was almost empty, two days before the inspection day, I no longer slept there. The first night I didn’t sleep in the cottage the landlord went into the cottage (it’s downstairs from her house) and “inspected” it without me. It was NOT on the day we had agreed, I was not yet fully moved out. Next thing I knew, the agent was calling me and telling me that the landlord had found stains on the walls and the cottage was “filthy” and I would forfeit a portion of my deposit. When I returned to the cottage I found wall stains I had NEVER seen before, suddenly the bedroom wall was scratched and dirty. The landlord refused to ever have a real inspection with me and the agent present. I ended up leaving the cottage without the landlord having ever spoken to me in person about the “damages” in the cottage, when I knocked at her door she refused to open the door and said she had Covid. However when I returned there the next day to meet the agent and return the key, the landlord had come out and spoken to the agent, suddenly Covid free in a matter of hours! Throughout those 3 days of my moving out, the agent would say openly to me that she knew the landlord was wrong but she did nothing about it! She did not exercise her duty as an agent to arrange a proper inspection and mediate between myself as tenant and the landlord. Catherine Brookstone was borderline scared of the landlord and it was like I was dealing with the landlord alone, unable to hold her accountable even though the agent (Catherine) supposedly agreed with me that this landlord was wrong. I don’t want to make this a racial thing but the landlord was a white woman and Catherine is white as well and in the end it felt a little bit like the two had a better understanding and were determined to just get rid of me without my deposit. In the end I only received R3400 instead of my R4500 deposit and I received no statement with the breakdown of costs for the “repairs” that had been made to the cottage that cost me that portion of my deposit! I would recommend anyone think twice before getting into an agreement with this “agent.”