n unfortunate amount of inaccuracies in the response from someone I would have thought might be better informed.
Firstly, I contacted the agency to express my interest prior to the bank holiday, correct, but it was almost a week prior, on the Monday, which you failed to mention. Hearing nothing back and not knowing how long these things take as this was my first time letting I also called on Wednesday and was told the person handling my case was out of the office and so they'd get them to ring me back that day when they returned. Heard nothing. Rang up again Thursday and was told exactly the same thing. Again heard nothing back. So finally called again on Monday and was informed that the person in office was only there for emergency contacts etc and therefore knew nothing about my case, and would get someone to call me the next day (No, I was not told anything about another applicant that day), however I did say to the person I spoke to that I'd be happy to go the full price, we just didn't want to miss out on this place. So my fourth call on Tuesday was when I finally got information. As I said, over a week later.

Furthermore, I never said or implied that I believed the property would be off the market for me, I was merely surprised to see when filling out the application form that it was possible to pay a £150 holding fee, which I assume holds the property when the said fee is paid along with receiving a form? I assume we could have officially applied, over a week before anyone else and the property could have been held, had anyone informed us of this, unfortunately as I said, we were given no advice even being first time buyers. I may be incorrect of course, in which case I sincerely apologise and shall strike the relevant part from my review. But as it is, there are no inaccuracies in my review and shall therefore be making no changes.

Dear Ben,

Whilst I am happy to hear from clients I am afraid that in this case given the inaccuracies and innuendoes in your comments I feel I must respond.

Having looked into your case it appears that you called the office prior to the bank holiday weekend to make what to use your words was a ‘cheeky offer', well below the advertised rent.

Now there is nothing wrong with this and in fact we encourage it, but we are legally and contractually required to refer offers to the landlord. You were told this at the time and also I believe that given the level of the offer it would be unlikely that the landlord would accept it.

On the following Monday when we partially re opened we received another enquiry from someone who wanted the property at the advertised price. When you called you were told this you increased your offer to the same level. Both parties were told to complete the referencing paperwork and were told that no application would be accepted until we had received completed applications.

You and they submitted the paperwork and because we had two applicants either of whom would have been suitable in our eyes we asked the landlord if they had any preferences.

Disappointingly for you in this case they chose the other applicant. My staff then explained the situation to you and told you that because we were happy with your paperwork if there was another property you were interested in then we would accept an application for that.

At no time did we tell you we would take the property of the market for you or the other party, we don't do that until a completed application and holding deposit has been received and we wouldn't accept an application until the landlord agreed the offer. Additionally we did tell you that your ‘offer' would have to be agreed by the landlord, as we are legally obliged to do.

Fundamentally you made the choice to make a lower over forcing us to refer it, there is nothing wrong with that but it was your choice. If you had offered the advertised rent and completed the paperwork etc then the property would have been off the market at that point and no other offers would have been entertained.

I am afraid that I feel that in this case you have given us a poor review for fundamentally doing our job and you not getting what you want. Well sometimes that's just the way it goes.

Regards,

Nick Horan
Belvoir Dundee