Our request to discuss this issue has been declined and so our response is made without any further clarification.

Andrew Grant take any shortfall in our service very seriously. The language used at the end of this review raised particular concern as it does not reflect our ethos or ethics in any way. Our diligent approach to customer service is demonstrated by our many five start reviews, however, occasional problems or oversights are bound to occur. How these are dealt with is vital.

This issue for the tenant is significant and our main failing here was not making our contact number for service complaints more visible. This quickly gains access to my desk (Chairman) and where any reasonable issue is swiftly attended to and resolved as soon as possible.

In this case the reviewer was in a shared tenancy and as she was not one of the original group of tenants appears unaware that three agencies run the property, ourselves Andrew Grant, London based Leonard Leese, who handle keys at handover, and Southwark Council who deal with any matters concerning the fabric and services to the building.

Last September, arrangements the reviewer made between herself and the leaving tenant for a handover of keys failed, with the keys being left in the flat for her. Any spare keys are held by Leonard Lease but due to communication problems that often arise with tenant to tenant transfers the new tenant was unaware of this. In the event, she had to wait for one of the other two occupiers to return that day, causing some additional inconvenience, particularly as she had just arrived from Singapore. Our email trail shows the outgoing tenant sought our help and here we failed to recognise the extra hour or so time that would be involved waiting for one of the other keyholders to return.

With regard to the leaking roof, this is a flat with flats above and so any issue would have been with the ceiling and the tenant above. Responsibility for the fabric of the building is with the owners of the building, Southwark Council. The required resolution is to call Southwark Councils help line which offers an efficient service.

The flat did require modifications and additions to comply with HMO regulations and as I understand these were carried out as needed and within the timeline required.

The fairness of cost of rental is there to be judged by a prospective tenant upon viewing the property and before accepting a tenancy. Also, it must be pointed out that a request by the tenant group to break the tenancy and leave early was generously granted without penalty by the landlord under fire in this review, although a request for a refund based on one tenant leaving a few weeks before the date of the break was not.

Regarding the role of Scott Richardson Brown as Landlord (over many years) and CEO of Andrew Grant (2020), his and my commitment to excellent service is clearly demonstrated through our customer reviews. As Chairman I oversee instances where he has a dual role (and in all matters of customer service) to ensure there can be no question of conflict of interest. That said, Scott’s reputation and his commitment to high standards go before him.

However, we recognise clients do not make complaints casually. The role of Andrew Grant in the large number of flats they deal with in London is as a communications and customer service hub and, in this instance, we have clearly failed.

Given our whole ethos is centred on genuinely excellent customer service we will ensure immediately that all London tenants are fully aware of our complaints/escalation number should they ever need it.

Meanwhile, we are extremely sorry for any distress that has resulted from this breakdown of communication, the process is now being tightened. We certainly need to further recognise the vagaries of multi occupancy and the issues that arise through tenant to tenant transactions.

However, being accused of being “morally and ethically bankrupt” has taken the wind out of our sales given the actual nature of the issues and how hard our entire team strive to work to the very highest standards. When one looks at the substance of this complaint this is entirely inappropriate, extreme and highly questionable language.

Finally, should anyone reading this require further details on this issue do feel free to call me at the Chairmans office, Andrew Grant.