London Estate Agency to avoid - CRESTONS

DTDfanBoy

I assume you have considered recovery via a High Court Enforcement Officer, as I'm sure you are aware you'll have virtually no chance of recovering all of your money, but you should have a chance of recovering the enforcement fees and more importantly the seizure of everything the company owns may make it harder for them to keep duping others.

Trading Standards are for the most part under-resourced and it will probably take them quite some time to shut the company down.

Emjonrm

Thanks for this.


It's important that all customers who have had money stolen by Crestons report them to Trading Standards. The more complaints there are the quicker we can get them closed down.


Any advice on how to get the message 'out there' to encourage people to contact Trading Standards? From a search on social media it seems they have stolen money from alot of people.


I am also going to contact all companies/individuals who are named as having a court judgement against Crestons. I am sure they will want to report them.


Not going to give up until they are closed down. Also as a rogue trader I have it on good authority that the local MP will be interested...

Emjonrm

If anybody reading this has had a bad experience with Crestons including their money stolen, extortionate fees and malpractice/dishonesty please report them to Trading Standards. All you need to do is call 03454 04 05 06 which is the Citizens Advice Consumer Line and they will refer the matter on to Trading Standards. Obviously the more complaints they get the more chance there is of getting Crestons investigated and hopefully closed down so we can minimise other people getting ripped off by them.


Many thanks.

Emjonrm

Check out w w w.c r e s t o n s. i n f o

jimbog

Emjonrm wrote: »

Check out w w w.c r e s t o n s. i n f o

http://www.crestons.info/

Emjonrm

By way of an update, there now seems to be an issue with Crestons returning the deposit to the tenants. I have authorised the release of the deposit but emails are again being ignored.


I have also had a letter from the Deposit Scheme (which Crestons use which is an insurance backed scheme) confirming that Crestons are withdrawing from the scheme (to be more precise one of their operating companies is withdrawing) which makes the landlord ultimately liable to pay the deposit back to the tenant which would mean that Crestons can effectively keep the deposit monies and force landlords to pay.


I guess the tenants/landlord could lodge a complaint with The Property Ombudsman and maybe also sue the operating company but all of this takes a lot of time and money (which I suspect the tenants do not have).


It seems like Crestons are simply abusing the system...

Emma_Markby

I wish I had read this before we got involved with them. Have you had any joy in terms of getting any money back from them?

twistedmoosie

Hi there,

I also had a bad experience with Crestons. I was a tenant and it took me something like 4 months to get my deposit back after I moved (it wasn't protected in the tenancy deposit scheme as was legally required, so I'm not surprised they aren't even in the scheme any more, we certainly were not the only ones this happened to). Seemingly this was a miracle given others haven't recovered theirs.

I only got my money back after writing (truthful) reviews online, and constantly calling and emailing them, to the point where one day I called every 15 minutes and told them if I didn't get a response that day I was heading straight to small claims. I got various threatening calls in return accusing me of defamation. I think they only gave in because I told them I was going to post the same review on every relevant website and social media outlet that I could find, and also picket outside their Brick Lane branch with leaflets telling prospective tenants how others had been treated. Basically they got sick of me and my smart-!!! lawyer attitude every time they tried to bully me!

I'm afraid the fact that their current company is dissolving is nothing new, if you do a bit of searching on Companies House Direct you'll see the same thing happened to their previous companies. How they are able to keep resurrecting themselves and trading under the Crestons name I'm not sure. I spoke to a previous administrator and he told me there were hundreds of claims to deal with from landlords, tenants, contractors, that wouldn't get paid...

The best of luck to you with Trading Standards, but the court route with sheriffs I hear is better - there are plenty of newish shiny items you can remove from their offices if the order is against the company. I fear one day someone is going to take matters into their hands and smash up their ostentatious offices, the reviews on All Agents are pretty angry.

Guest101

james2016 wrote: »

I'm in a similar situation situation, after a horrible start to the tenancy I'm now sitting in a cafe down the road from their brick lane office waiting for their manager to get in.

Initially they letting agent bluntly lied to us about what would be done to the flat before we moved in, we were told there would be a new couch, mattress, fresh paint, fixed dryer and a car park. When asked to sign the lease at the apartment to check on this she (Alisha from the now closed camden office) insisted we had to sign it at the office. We moved in to find none of the things promised were done and we'd stupidly not gotten any of it in writing and were now stuck in a lease.

A year later we ended the lease and the landlord instructed that our full deposit be returned. Three months later and we still don't have it, and on investigation its not with any of the deposit schemes. Ray (Mohammed Rayn Mashuk) one of the company directors never returns calls or emails and the office never know anything or can't look up a thing. After getting some legal advice it seems more poor land lord is now liable for the deposit even though crestons collected the money off us and never deposited it or passed it on to him.

It also seems like they have been declared insolvent - search for "SIRS ASSOCIATES LTD" (the bank account that our deposit was payed into) on companies house or endole. How they can continue to do this to people is crazy as there are a heap of similar stories out there.

Your contract is with the LL, not the agent.


of course there is an element of sympathy for the LL, but ultimately they are running a business and should be acting accordingly.

Pixie5740

Ultimately it's your landlord's responsibility to ensure your deposit has been protected (the landlord is the one you have a contract with). It's up to your landlord to return your deposit and to take it up with his agent.

If you still don't have your deposit then send a letter before action to both your landlord and his agent (Shelter's website has templates you can use). If your deposit still isn't returned then go to small claims court. You can sue for non-protection of your deposit as well if you want to.

See Deposits for more information.