“I am one of a group of students who wanted ......”
1 Star Review
Dec 28,2012
By:
'Elizabeth'
Dec 28,2012
Branch: Coventry, 89c Far Gosford Street
Services: Lettings (Prospective customer)
Would you recommend?: No
Postcode: CV4
Branch: Coventry, 89c Far Gosford Street
Lettings (Prospective customer)
Postcode: CV4
10
people found
this helpful
I am one of a group of students who wanted to rent with Envisage. After I expressed an interest in the property Envisage responded very promptly. However, they were very sketchy in the details of our expenses and the amount of rent we would be charged increased 3 times in a fortnight. They also added a seventh bedroom in (after we viewed the property) and told us we had to find another person to rent with. They put an unreasonable amount of pressure to pay non refundable administration fees of £150 per person as soon as we had viewed the property (between the 7 of us £1050). Not only is this a large amount of money, they expected us to pay without seeing a complete version of the contract! We consulted a property lawyer on this and they advised us to stay well away. Envisage also told us we would need individual guarantors, which we had. However, it transpired that they expected the seven of us to sign into one contract, which obviously would make each of the guarantors responsible for all of us! Once we had paid the admin fees, we wouldn't be bound into a contract until they wrote one up - in the meantime, the amount of rent and deposit owed could change. They wouldn't tell us these details straight out; we had to arrange a meeting to talk this over and the letting agent who we had all the correspondence with was not present so the staff member we were speaking to did not know any of the details of the property. Finally, after an hour of talking, we said we would go outside to discuss it amongst ourselves and come back in a hour (this was 4:30 and they said they did not shut until 6). When we came back at 5:30, the shop was shut and we were unable to speak with them further! We did not rent with them; all in all they seemed out to take our money and scam us. I would advise any students looking to rent with them to be very careful and not give them any money without checking over everything first!
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-It's illegal to pressure tenants into paying any non-refundable fee without allowing them to see the COMPLETED contract. You should know that as estate/letting agents; look it up.
-It's immoral (possibly illegal) to put so much pressure on potential tenants to pay so much money with no time to discuss/think things over. You just asked for £1050 on the spot, that's crazy.
-It's immoral to allow such ridiculous price increases. I have no evidence to suggest that it's because you were dealing with students that you allowed this to happen, but I'm willing to bet a £150 administration fee that this wouldn't have happened to a 30 y.o. professional looking to rent with you.
Essentially, to put it simply for you, the problem is that your agency is looking out for the Landlord and for itself; not for student tenants. You're willing to manipulate the easy target because you know that students generally don't have a leg to stand on.
I think the amount of care you put into making sure that your above response was coherent and grammatically sound is a good indication of how much you actually care.
(If there's any dispute on any of this, I would happily upload the recording that I took of our meeting on request)