Bond refund

Someone from the Brisbane sub pointed me here so I will just copy and paste my post below, hoping to get some advice please!

Dealing with bond refund and they want to keep our whole bond and quoted us close to $2000 for ‘exit repairs’, we asked to pay separately and want our bond refunded in full, a few back and forth emails later, they seemed to finally agree? So we asked for actual quotes first, never got any, then just now got an invoice for it, and it literally only says ‘exit repairs’, so I asked for itemised receipts for the ‘repairs’ done, then they replied asking me why I need it fully itemised? Am I really being crazy here or is it not completely reasonable to want to see what they actually spent (if any) before charging me almost $2000 for what they claim to be ‘minor repairs’? And on the exit report (which included over 1000 photos which I thought was a bit excessive) they never even listed anything to be rectified, so I am really thinking they are trying to take us for a ride here. Which really sucks cause we tried to be on good terms with them (PM) as this was our first rental and we need them for reference…and was even hoping we could rent from them again as they hinted there should be properties being listed in the next month or two that will suit us (aka be in our price range). They also wrote to us we have been excellent tenants and they will ‘look after’ us, the only reason our lease was not renewed was because the owner wanted renovations done, so I really thought they would be helpful, but I certainly don’t feel that way now! They also claimed not getting our full bond back will not affect any future rental applications??? Can I just not trust anything they say? What should my next step be and how should I reply? Any advice would be great. Thanks

And if it matters, they claimed the main damage is something that actually needed urgent repair last year and the report from that urgent repair stated it needed to be replaced eventually, it was a temporary fix. And they never cited what the other ‘minor repairs’ are.

This is really stressful and frustrating to us and we have had to move in with my partner’s family which is an absolutely toxic environment. We are still looking on rentals on top of dealing with the bond refund. If anyone has any rentals available too please let me know!

Update: managed to get ahold of both the RTA and QSTARS. Bond is still with RTA, needed my consent to email me the notice of claim, have completed and submitted the form 16 to dispute the bond refund! The QSTARS adviser I spoke to has stressed many times that I need to submit the form to dispute first, then made a referral to have someone correspond with us and assist us with the whole bond dispute process. Fingers crossed!