AJR Student Lets insist that they are positioned in the market as 'Loughborough's premier student lettings agency', but from my experiences as a tenant I am led to believe that this is far from the truth. Quite simply, I had a terrible experience letting a student house with AJR and on countless occasions I wished I had stayed in William Morris Halls again. Our group of 12 let three houses next door to each other (4 bedrooms each) with AJR, all owned by the same landlord. I was a late addition to the group as a friend decided to leave uni for a year, leaving a free room which I was happy to fill. Because I was a late arrival I didn't have the chance to have a viewing or influence the housing decision. I was told by the group that during the viewings they were shown one of the three houses and told by Ryan Westley (former lettings consultant) that they were all exactly the same regarding fixtures, fittings and appliances. This was evidently a lie by Mr Westley in order for a quick contract sign. The house that the group were shown had modern appliances, a TV aerial point in the (very small) lounge and was generally well kept. However, the other two houses were far from this, and this is why the group weren't shown these houses but they trusted Ryan at the time to be telling the truth. We also had to pay rent from the beginning of July 2014, but we couldn't actually move into our house until 20th September because there were still people living there. I understand many student lets start in July but students can usually move-in to their houses from the start of July too. Clearly this was a setup for AJR to earn double the rent for the property over the summer. Move-in day arrived on 21st September 2014. My housing experience didn't start well, as when I went to collect my keys from the office I was told that they didn't have a set for me, only an office set which I wasn't allowed. I was told to go and get a set cut myself using my housemate's keys, and luckily one of my housemates was at the house so I could actually move my stuff in! On arrival at the house, the state outside didn't bode well for the rest of the year. The driveway looked like cardboard city with junk dumped everywhere and bins overflowing, with rubbish also dumped in the back garden by the door. This didn't get sorted until a month afterwards when the Community Street Warden got involved. On entering the house, my housemate informed me that the back door was unlocked (!) and then I saw for myself the state of the place. It was absolutely filthy, particularly the kitchen which was lined with thick grease/fat all around the surfaces, with fat that had solidified mid-drip from the extractor hood and one of the rooms smelling of urine. To add to this, the kitchen fire alarm had been covered in cling film (obviously because the previous tenants were smokers) and the fire alarm in the hallway didn't even have a battery installed and was bleeping. Before moving in we had been emailed by AJR saying that the microwave, some kitchen cupboards and other things in the bedrooms needed repairing. On arrival we found that additionally there was no shower rail or curtain, screws were exposed from cupboard doors (that could have cut our legs open), carpets were frayed and the first floor bedroom had seriously bad damp. Most of these problems were not seen to until 3 months after move-in, despite reporting them immediately. Some of them never got seen to for the duration of the tenancy. AJR also sent contractors round to do random jobs that we never even mentioned and were unnecessary, such as painting the downstairs hallway and moving a garden fencing panel (which was literally a 30-second job). Our dishwasher also broke down in November, but this wasn't fixed before we left the house in June. In Easter 2015 we also had a landlord inspection with AJR. It seemed that she was unaware of the problems with her own house, as she took a lot of photos of things which we had reported to AJR from move-in. It was apparent that AJR were not taking note of our comments, and therefore the landlord didn't know much about the condition of her property. We would have contacted her directly but weren't provided with her contact details, and had to do everything via AJR. Financial management is another let-down point for AJR. We paid for all-inclusive bills, including internet. We had to arrange our own internet connection and should have been paid an internet rebate for the year at the start of the tenancy. This didn't happen for several months, meaning we had to pay from our own pockets for the internet during this time. We also had issues with the rent, as one of our housemates wasn't paying rent. This made for a difficult situation, as we didn't want to accuse our housemate of lying (he insisted he was paying the rent) whilst we didn't know if AJR were making a mistake by claiming rent arrears, given their generally poor organisation to date. Instead of taking action sooner, AJR let his rent arrears accumulate to over �2,000 before doing anything about it. Huw from AJR was actually very considerate in this case and willing to go out of his way to help, but someone should have been sent sooner. This resulted in a very awkward situation for us and AJR should have been more proactive in the matter. It really didn't help that AJR were threatening legal actions when I had four exams in the coming weeks. Finally came the time to move-out of the property. To get my deposit back I ensured that the house was deep cleaned, and as a result it was much cleaner than when I found it. Before leaving, I was contacted by a future tenant for next door, who wanted to store his things in our garage and was told by AJR he could do this. Being decent, I agreed to let him do this. However, I also needed to store my own things in the garage overnight because the tenancy for my next house didn't start until the day after checkout. On contacting AJR I was told that this wasn't allowed, but I went ahead with it anyway as I had no choice. I really don't understand why they said no, seeing as I had just let a random person store their things in there without being told about it first – this was simply a matter of double standards which I wasn't going to allow after all the work I put into cleaning the house. Then the checkout took place at 10am with AJR's Managing Partner Ian Fisher, after which I handed over the keys and was told that my �200 deposit would be returned in full. To date, I have still not received this deposit and AJR have breached the AST agreement by not returning the deposit within 30 days of the end of tenancy. This is particularly frustrating, given the good condition I left the house in. I have contacted them by email/phone multiple times, only to be going round in circles and told 'the matter is in hand' or 'it's with the accounts department'. After looking into this further via the TDS website, I cannot find a Tenancy Deposit Certificate (none of us were sent one originally) and this suggests that AJR didn't officially protect my �200 deposit. All I want is my deposit returned and to be done with them. As well as my experiences, my friends in other AJR managed houses have witnessed the same too, in terms of delayed repairs and negligence. One of them was even given the keys to their house before the previous tenants had moved out! I haven't heard a single good thing about them as a student letting agent. All in all it just seems that AJR are unreliable, unorganised and incompetent at what they are meant to do, and it's really quite annoying, if not upsetting, that they are allowed to continue running in this way, harming other Loughborough student experiences like mine. In light of all this, I would recommend the students of Loughborough to think twice about student houses, and really do their homework when looking for houses. As said at the start, on many occasions I wish I had stayed in halls because they were so much easier in terms of bills, rent payments, repairs and maintenance. I really hope that AJR will improve their ways and turnaround their approach to student lettings, but I doubt this will happen anytime soon.

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