I am obviously deeply disappointed to read this ‘anonymous’ review as I feel that myself and my team work very hard to protect the needs of our landlords. It is difficult for me to establish how much of the content of this review I agree or disagree with without knowing the background or which property or landlord it relates to. I feel that as a company we are very honest and if/when we do make a mistake I am confident that we hold our hands up and do everything we can to put things right. In response to some of the points made I would like to say the following:

Cutting corners: As a company we invest a lot of additional time into our processes to ensure quality.

Trying to make as much money as possible: 100% this is not the case. We do NOT make decisions regarding our landlords properties based on which option makes us the most money. We deal with 620 properties at present and have an impeccable retention rate. It is very rare that we have ever lost business through under performance / miss-management on fully managed properties. All staff are trained to understand the value of money and to actively save money for landlords where ever possible.

Scheduled reviews: Based on how many reviews and inspections we have to do on a weekly basis I would be an operational nightmare if we allowed all tenants to pick and choose the date and time of their reviews. Tenants are given plenty of notice (usually 2 weeks or more) to make arrangements if they wish to be present at reviews which I feel is more than adequate. In regards to a charge for tenants that decide to change the locks themselves – yes, this is a stipulation as tenants should not change locks of their own accord at ANY point during a tenancy. To use the example of a potential different scenario - If a tenant stopped paying their rent or we had a complaint from a neighbour saying there was reason to believe that a tenant was not maintaining a property to a the correct standard, I would suspect that the person who posted this review may potentially hold a different opinion about our stance of tenants changing locks if all of a sudden we could not get access to rectify such an issue or it prevented us from reacting accordingly.

Tradesmen: Without knowing which property this review relates to I cannot offer any response to this section without being able to understand the back ground. If the person who posted the review would like to contact me directly at [email protected] I can look into this in more detail. In regards to the gas safety inspection being required shortly after the boiler install this was more than likely due to the fact that after a boiler install the gas engineer will provide an installation certificate. This is different to a gas safety certificate so if the annual check was due this would have remained the case even after the new boiler install.

They have been practicing like this for over 5 years: This statement indicates to me that the person who has written the review has a long standing relationship with our company which confuses me greatly given our extremely high retention rate that I mentioned above and the fact that I cannot think of ANY long standing landlords that we have lost ties with. In my experience – if a letting agent offered a poor service then landlords typically wouldn’t still be using that agent after 5 years.

They are rude, inconsiderate and clearly consider themselves a social class ahead of anyone else: I feel this a completely unjustified comment. Housing benefit tenants are the foundation of our business. We DO NOT discriminate against anyone and treat all of our clients (Landlord and tenants alike) with the same level of respect. In regards, to the claim that one of our staff made the comment “is their fault for renting, and should endeavour to get a mortgage like normal people” - I would be beyond shocked if ANY of our staff would say something so ridicules. I am confident in the ability and professionalism of ALL of our staff as I personally invest a lot of time into their training and development.

As mentioned above I can add some further substance to my response in regards to the review and would love the opportunity to discuss the matter further if the person who wrote it would like to contact me.

Best regards,
Aaron Phelan
Lettings Director
Email: [email protected]