Bloomin' lettings agency - checkout inspection issues!

ahrimaniac

Jesus wept almighty.

Bit of a rant here. If you're thinking about moving home in the North East, stay well clear of this company. I've had nothing but bad experiences with them and am loathe to recommend. Of course, this is just my personal experience.

We have been renting an apartment on the Quayside for three years, always paid rent, always paid bills, always paid Council Tax, and never any complaints. We kept the place tidy and always met appointments/inspection.

However, they have not kept their side of things. We reported a severe mould problem in the flat in November 2008 - and since then, they have fobbed us off and not done a bloody thing to solve it, resulting in mould growing all over the bathroom and ruining the lino. We treated and repainted the walls from our own pocket but the problem was under the bath, in the walls, all sorts. The extractor fan broke but they did not replace it. Upshot is, we were paying £625 a month for a flat with a mouldy bathroom. With hindsight, I wish we had taken it further and got EH involved.

Now, we've come to move out and agreed an early tenancy release with the landlady to pay half-rent until the next tenant moves in or our original tenancy ended. We cleaned the flat, removed our possessions and made the place look good. We have also arranged for Merry Maid to deep-clean the flat, oven etc this week. This will cost us £130 but it's easier to pay that then to deal with the ineptitude of the staff at Martin & Co.

We had our pre-checkout inspection (!) on Thursday and you could not belive the am-dram performances from the lady inspecting. To summarise:

• shouting (!) that the oven was the dirtiest she'd ever seen - it isn't, we cleaned it with Mr Muscle AND told her we're getting it done
• exclaiming that we'll need to replace the cutlery as there is a spoon missing, then telling us it'll cost £8 (for a spoon)
• saying the bathroom was filthy whilst deftly ignoring the fact that they've rendered it unhabitable by doing SFA to sort the mould out
• stating that we were thrown out of our old flat for not paying rent (we've actually moved back into the flat we lived in before the Quayside so not sure the landlady would have us back if she'd thrown us out!)
• called my partner a liar by saying there were six plates despite the signed inventory we have four...
• said we had treated the flat with contempt - despite all of our monthly inspections coming back saying the flat was spotless
• saying we had to replace a full king size bed because one of the slats has broken despite us pointing out you can buy them online for like 60p

They've now started saying we have to pay full rent up until the point a tenant moves in and denying they've sent us correspondence to the contrary - we have a signed letter saying same so we're not budging but it's just more faff.

They're just horrendous to deal with - crap repairs, extremely poor customer service (save for one exception), charging for repairs that were never done and abysmal at remembering what they've said.

Oh, and they also said I can't complain about their behaviour to anybody but them! This can't be true. I'm going to post this in the tenants bit too, but just wanted a rant! BAH.

ahrimaniac

Also, the ever-so-lovely lady on the phone at the lettings Agency said herself the bathroom was unusable - meaning, as I work it out, if we pay £600 for a five-room flat and one room is unhabitable for ten months, surely we should get a rent rebate of £1250?

Jowo_2

Simple. After moving out, go through the dispute service with the tenancy deposit scheme if you disagree with any deductions. The Shelter website offers excellent information how to do this and how to take your landlord to the small claims court, if necessary. Your bathroom was usable in this period, was it not, rather than uninhabitable. I hope you reported the repairs in writing and kept a copy.

ahrimaniac

'Your bathroom was usable in this period, was it not, rather than uninhabitable. I hope you reported the repairs in writing and kept a copy.'

Yep, got plenty of emails bouncing back and forth and also written letters.

It was unusuable - I have asthma and it was extremely uncomfortable.

-Ad-

We had our pre-checkout inspection (!) on Thursday and you could not belive the am-dram performances from the lady inspecting. To summarise:

• shouting (!) that the oven was the dirtiest she'd ever seen - it isn't, we cleaned it with Mr Muscle AND told her we're getting it done
• exclaiming that we'll need to replace the cutlery as there is a spoon missing, then telling us it'll cost £8 (for a spoon)
• saying the bathroom was filthy whilst deftly ignoring the fact that they've rendered it unhabitable by doing SFA to sort the mould out
• stating that we were thrown out of our old flat for not paying rent (we've actually moved back into the flat we lived in before the Quayside so not sure the landlady would have us back if she'd thrown us out!)
• called my partner a liar by saying there were six plates despite the signed inventory we have four...
• said we had treated the flat with contempt - despite all of our monthly inspections coming back saying the flat was spotless
• saying we had to replace a full king size bed because one of the slats has broken despite us pointing out you can buy them online for like 60p

They've now started saying we have to pay full rent up until the point a tenant moves in and denying they've sent us correspondence to the contrary - we have a signed letter saying same so we're not budging but it's just more faff.

I just won a case with mydeposits. Here are the main facts that were stated in the report that might help

It is the responsibility of the Landlord/Agent to PROVE you left it in a worse state than at commencement of the tennancy.
- Do you have pictures from the start and end of tennancy and of all the problems?
- You say there is an inventory done at the beginning, does this included condition of the rooms/appliances etc?

Without evidence from them regarding pictures and inventory or condition from before and after, and also receipts for work carried out (including 2 other quotations to show they took the most cost effective route), they cannot claim all these fees and penalties.
- A load of twaddle and accusations will not stand with the adjudicator at the deposit company, therefore they will rule in your favour if you present sufficient evidence and they do not.


Most importantly the onus is on them to prove that you caused the damage, and if there is nothing in the initial inventory regarding the number of slats or slats condition of the bed, they cannot prove it wasn't there or damaged when you moved in. Also, if the inventory at the beginning says 4 plates then all you need to leave is 4 plates. The deposit company will see it as I have written above, and did so with me.

Forget the shouting and war of words, when push comes to shove, them trying to accuse you of this and that will mean nothing to the deposit company during a dispute. I created a 50 page document, about 6 pages of written text regarding the disputes and explaining the situation, with references to all the documents in the appendix (AST, initial inventory from 5yrs ago, my own updated inventory, pictures on moving in and final day, video of final walk around, receipt for keys handed back, e-mail chain with them ignoring all our requests). It was a lot of effort but not particularly hard, and the deposit company will side with your evidence rather than the word of some scummy agent.

Check out consumeractiongroup forums for letting. Great advice there and letter templates to send out. The next stage will be to send a formal request for the wholse deposit amount to be credited back in 10 working days, and this thing is available on the consumer forums mentioned above. Most likely the Letting Agent will talk crap etc, but reiterate this 10 working day deadline in another letter, then if they ignore it or talk crap (they will), then read up on the deposit company website (depends on which scheme you are with) and prepare to file a dispute. Ring them up if you want them to talk you through the process.

As a note, I got back all disputed cleaning, money regarding something they broke after I moved out (they accused me of it), and even the checkout inspection fees that in the AST contract were to be charged to us (they didn't provide any evidence thus probably didn't even do one).

:beer:

clutton_2

black mould in a bathroom is nearly always due to lack of ventilation - they did not repair the extractor - their fault.

i tried to complain about Martins & Co when they were finding me a tenant - they are a franchise - so dont waste yoru time, just dont use them again

ahrimaniac

Ad - you legend. Going to crack on preparing an evidence document now - and it's great to know that the little person will not be beat!

Much obliged for your help,

J