“If I could give a zero star review I would. ......”
1 Star Review
Dec 12,2016
By:
'Appalled'
Dec 12,2016
Branch: Maidenhead, 2 Orchard House, High Street
Services: Lettings (as a Tenant)
Rent PCM: £1475
Would you recommend?: No
Postcode: SL6
Branch: Maidenhead, 2 Orchard House, High Street
Lettings (as a Tenant)
Rent PCM: £1475
Postcode: SL6
45
people found
this helpful
If I could give a zero star review I would. This company, in my view, is crooked in the highest order. Failed to bank my deposit for 6 months (I don't think they'd have done it at all if the landlady hadn't threatened to sack them for poor management). This BROKE THE LAW but his response is 'In reality the deposit was never in danger, and it's protected now so there's no case to answer'. Ummmm....wow!
I have never had to deal with a more arrogant man, who is intent on treating his paying customers like the scum of the earth and getting away with providing a scandalously bad level of service.
There is a catalogue of examples, but just to give a couple: my quarterly check happened (2 months late), I mentioned that the button on the toilet was loose. He got someone round to fix it while I was at work. On coming home at 5:30 on a Friday night I find the toilet broken and no notification from Whirlybird about this. He refused to send an emergency plumber, hiding behind 'the landlady won't approve the costs for an emergency plumber'. He also refused to take responsibility for one of HIS OWN APPROVED maintenance people breaking my toilet. I asked him what I should do given that I only have one toilet in the property. His response was to go to the pub for tonight and he'll 'try' and get someone in on Saturday morning. This isn't a broken socket; this is a basic sanitary requirement. His people broke it and he again couldn't see why I was enraged that he refused to put it right.
He also gave one of his contractors a key to the property to fix a window. Then called me the morning of the check to try to rearrange it because they didn't have a set of keys. I'm sorry? You're the managing agent. And yes, you do have keys as I saw your set when I picked mine up and you gave your set to the maintenance guy so he could let himself in. Suddenly the penny drops......the maintenance guy had had keys to my property for 2 weeks and the managing agent had no idea because he can't manage his way out of a paper bag. It took me to tell him where his keys probably were before he realised. This invalidated both mine and the landlady's insurance. Again, he failed to see the problem.
As part of the quarterly check, his service is to take photos. He didn't. The landlady asked where they were. He then emailed me to ask me to send him photos. I'm sorry, what are you doing for your £200 a month management fee?
The alarm system in the garage had been going off intermittently for 3 days before I moved in (the neighbours told me). I contacted Whirlybird to ask them how to switch it off and they said they didn't know. And 'we've never been in the garage so how would we know?'. You....MANAGE...the property. Not just the kitchen, not just the lounge. The property in its entirety, that I rent IN ITS ENTIRETY.
He's now effectively blackmailing me to pay £165+VAT to make an amend to my contract. One amend. Nearly £200. That's some hourly rate. The landlady approved me to have a dog on the understanding that I pay for any damage and she told him she didn't expect me to pay him any more after everything that's happened. But he's ignored this and just pressed ahead with the charges he wants to charge.
He charged me a £120 'rush fee' to get in the property within 2 weeks. I don't know about you, but I don't think 2 weeks is a particular rush given the property had been sitting empty. By the way, the landlady didn't know about this fee and wouldn't have sanctioned it.
I'm currently working with my landlady who has also received a shocking level of service, to either take him to the redress scheme or to court for the illegal holding of my deposit of over £2,000. He is liable for up to 3 times my deposit back in compensation, yet still maintains his arrogant, money grabbing demeanour.
I won't speak of my landlady's issues with him; she can write another essay from her perspective.
Sorry to rant, but people need to know this stuff. There's more I could rant about, but you get the idea. AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE unless you want to be ripped off, treated like scum and talked to like you're an idiot.
Comment on agent fees
Scandalous. £120 'rush fee' to get you in a property within 2 weeks. £165+VAT to make one amend to the contract. Maintenance quotes that are nearly double the market rate. My landlady and I now work directly to do any maintenance as his service has been so bad and a rip off. We have compared quotes and had work done for nearly half the price. And yet she's still paying him £200 a month when she's effectively managing it herself now.
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Reading through his defensive replies not once does he take responsibility for his actions and it always seems his clients are to blame or in the wrong. Even sinking to the depths of a vicious tirade. This is the response and approach of a trusworthy, friendly professional?
That alone should speaks volumes.
People dont write negative reviews without reason and make things up, what is the point in that?
Hopefully people will read these and avoid being stung my this man.