Dear Sir / Madam

Thank you for taking the time to review although read with some level of surprise and disappointment albeit I did receive comments directed to me as being pleasant which is possibly the only positive comment to take from the review. With it being an anonymous post I am unable to comment any further in depth or provide you with an appropriate response. In relation to renting a property to a family friend, all members of the family and staff are all born and raised in the Wigan locality, and with the majority of our stock being in the Wigan area an apportionment of our rentals are possibly going to be to family friends of some form. That does not affect the service at all. We represent the landlord, not the tenant and that has always been the case. In relation to the type of tenant, this is always done via the instruction form, so if it were to be no pets, no smokers, no dss then our reference checks are done to such standards and are completed independently by an approved tenant reference provider. If a tenant is to lie about such facts, then unfortunately this can occasionally happen - even with the greatest intention in the world of finding out everything about an applicant.

We have in excess of 500 properties of which some properties have been rented in excess of 5-10 times so with approximately 5000 tenancies we cannot be 100% successful and if you were unhappy with the service then I can only apologise profusely. With being experienced in property management there is a multitude of scenarios in which we are faced with and we handle those to the best of our abilities and as a whole this is very successful.

We have a very well trained team and I for one, believe our professionalism and service is unrivalled. Your opinion is clearly the opposite which is disappointing but if a landlord was ever unsatisfied with the service then they always have the opportunity to discuss this with ourselves and the door always remained open. Intimidation is most definitely not a characteristic that we would ever utilise and to suggest this in your review is malicious to the business.

I have also checked my diary going back many years, and Daniel and myself have not attended appointments together as this would be a waste of staff resources and ultimately it would be totally unnecessary. If a tenant has caused damage we would only be too willing to have photos to support the deposit claim and this would never be reluctantly agreed.

We are surprised by the complete shambles comments and find it to be very unfair, and only intended as being damaging to the business as opposed to being an honest review or a fair reflection of the hard work that we do daily and that all members of the team pride themselves on. The names of the family and all members of staff are available via our web pages so it would be quite an easy process to make references to such names without having direct dealings with them.

Furthermore, if our business practice was a "complete shambles" then this would prove to be very conflicting to the sustained levels of growth, the ability to move twice to larger premises and to continue to satisfy landlords and vendors on a regular basis. It would also not permit us to be a member of The Property Ombudsman and their strict code of practice. Again, as mentioned, no business or service is perfect and we are continually looking to improve our customer service so we will take such comments as constructive criticism as such and aim to better our performance as we thrive to do on a daily basis.

I would politely ask you to reconsider the 1* rating but given the review and anonymous post I find it difficult to believe that this will happen.

As a result of the review which I find to be unfair I will ultimately send emails to landlords on our database who I hope will be more positive with a review of the service we pride ourselves on so that impartial landlords receive a fair and true reflection of Sapphire Homes.

Lastly, if your comments are a genuine post then again, I can only apologise once more for the dissatisfaction you experienced and although unlikely, if we were ever given the opportunity in the future to handle your property again then I am sure your opinion of our services would change.

I wish you all the best for the future.

Kind Regards

Paul