“Very disappointed with Touchstone CPS's Bath office. My 19 year old ......”
2 Star Review
Feb 19,2018
By:
'HJH'
Feb 19,2018
Branch: Bath, 2 Crescent Office Park Clarks Way
Services: Lettings (as a Tenant)
Rent PCM: £500
Would you recommend?: No
Postcode: W3
Branch: Bath, 2 Crescent Office Park Clarks Way
Lettings (as a Tenant)
Rent PCM: £500
Postcode: W3
2
people found
this helpful
Very disappointed with Touchstone CPS's Bath office.
My 19 year old daughter was relocating from Australia to London for 6 months work placement. She found a house share online, managed by Touchstone, and organised for a friend to visit it to check it out. It appeared to be ok from what he could see (although access was limited due to the current tenant still being in the room). She decided to go ahead and asked for the lease agreement to be sent to her - this was towards the end of August 2017.
On 31st August 2017 she hadn't heard anything, so I called Touchstone (from Australia) and spoke to Kate Baldwin.
Kate was lovely, extremely helpful and explained it could be a problem that my daughter had no tenant history but we could organise a British Guarantor to overcome that. This was done and the admin fee was duly transferred. Then we waited - and waited.....and waited.
Despite numerous phone calls, and promises that someone would get back to us we heard nothing.
Eventually on 13/9 I was told by Matt Johnstone that Kate Baldwin had left and they couldn't find/access the relevant files! Good grief!! In this day and age there that is inexcusable in a professional organisation! So we had to send the Guarantor forms again.
On the day before my daughter left for London (22/9) we finally got the lease document through.
Then the real fun started!!
She went with her cousin to the house. The room was vacant but very dirty. As they were cleaning they found a gas boiler in a cupboard inside the room. The following day when she returned, (stayed her first night in UK with her cousin) they found the Gas Safety Certificate next to the boiler was out of date. They also saw (because the door was left open) that the bedroom next to hers contained welding equipment including a lathe, and gas bottles!! It was set up more like a metal workshop than a bedroom (although the bed was still in there). Upstairs in the 'lounge' there was a laser cutting machine.
Her cousin rang the Council, they did not have a record that this house was a rental property, let alone that it had that sort of equipment in it. Obviously a fire risk!
Of course my daughter decided she could not live in that situation, and had to find other accommodation. Touchstone eventually sent someone to inspect the house and they agreed that it was not suitable for rent, and refunded the deposit and advanced rent she had paid. However they did not refund the £216 admin fee. I requested this from Matt Johnstone because the room was not in a fit state to be rented and so they should not have commenced the rental process. I was told they could only refund £144 as they had £72 of costs to cover.
I decided to accept that offer on13th October 2017 (although I thought they should cover their costs as it was their ineptitude which caused this issue).
It is now 20th February and the funds have not been returned.
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Thank you for taking the time to get in touch. Please accept our sincere apologies that the refund of your reference and reservation fee was overlooked. This was due to an administration error and we have today arranged for the full £216 admin fee to be refunded to your account by same day transfer.
The room your daughter took was privately advertised by the existing tenants, who contacted us to request an assignment. When your daughter contacted us about her concerns/findings, the matter was promptly reviewed and dealt with by Touchstone. Our Portfolio Manager inspected the property and confirmed that current gas safety certificate was still displayed on the communal notice board. At no time was there a period where the gas safety certificates had lapsed. One of the existing tenants had installed some equipment into the property. We arranged for this to be removed once we were made aware of it. The deposit and rent that your daughter had paid were refunded within 14 working days. I can confirm that the property is licenced with the council as a House in Multiple Occupancy until 2021 and was licenced at the time that your daughter took the room.
I am sorry to hear that your daughter had a poor experience when moving into one of our properties. We took immediate action upon the issues being brought to our attention. If you would like to discuss this matter further, then please contact [email protected]. Thank you.