“I have recently had the misfortune of being a tenant ......”
1 Star Review
Mar 24,2014
By:
'MattShill'
Mar 24,2014
Branch: Leamington Spa, 1st floor, 113 Regent Street
Services: Lettings (as a Tenant)
Would you recommend?: No
Postcode: CV31
Branch: Leamington Spa, 1st floor, 113 Regent Street
Lettings (as a Tenant)
Postcode: CV31
14
people found
this helpful
I have recently had the misfortune of being a tenant of The Letting People for 6 months in a 1-bedroom flat in Leamington Spa. On the door to their office is a quote saying how great they are, credited to ƒÂ¢¢â€šÂ¬…“Mr. A. LandlordƒÂ¢¢â€šÂ¬, and this hilariously transparent attempt at self-promotion sets the tone quite aptly for the experiences that follow.
I can only confirm and reiterate what others have said regarding this organisation - AVOID dealing with these people.
The main issue can be summarised as the lack of concern they show for their tenants, amounting to wilful evasion and deception. I would not have encountered this so much if I had no issues with the property - in their defence the initial signing of contracts was as helpful as you would expect. However, as soon as I moved in the trouble began, and from then on I was consistently ignored, fobbed off and frustrated at every turn.
One thing to understand is that the Mr and Mrs Kempster, the owners of the agency, also own a number of the properties they let out (this was the case for my flat). You will not be told this, but this obviously means there is no landlord acting as a customer to whom the 'agent' is answerable. Once you have signed the contract, the agency has no interest whatsoever in providing an adequate service. The agency staff will refer to the 'landlord' as if this is some distant third party, and will use this as an excuse to delay or avoid responding to issues. The whole process seems to be designed to lock tenants into a contract and then have as little involvement or contact as possible, spending nothing on maintenance or repairs, as long as you continue to cough up the rent.
Alarm bells first started to ring when I was issues an inventory for the property which had not been updated since 2009 (four years ago). This was obviously not representative of the current condition, leaving the responsibility to the tenant to record the condition of all items. Wholly unprofessional. On top of this, the state of the flat was well below expectations (large stain to lounge carpet hidden under an old rug, single glazing where EPC cert. had stated double, washing machine infested with mould, hot water system blocked with limescale and not functioning, fridge not functioning, kitchen table held together with gaffa tape, I could go on).
The first issue I tried to resolve was the functioning of the fridge. This was broken when I moved in (how had this not been checked?), and it took over TWO WEEKS for the agents to mobilise to pay for a replacement. Not acceptable, and I was treated as a nuisance throughout.
The electric shower was functioning so I was able to wash, but there was no hot water through the taps from the main tank for the entire period of my tenancy. Over the six months I was visited by 3 plumbers and the infamous Mr. Kempster himself, who brought a bag full of excuses and no solutions. One plumber diagnosed that the coil in the hot water cylinder was blocked with limescale, but TLP refused to replace this, leaving no domestic hot water supply for six months. Doing washing up using the kettle gets to be a real drag after half a year. The cause of the issue was that the flat still featured the original 1970s hot water cylinder, something which any conscientious landlord would have replaced two decades ago - a great example of their cost cutting in the extreme. I also contacted the previous tenants, who confirmed that they too had no hot water, so this was not a new issue.
It is worth noting that in failing to fix this, the landlord-agents were in breach of their legal obligations, and of their own tenancy agreement.
Aside from the water issue, the most galling problem arose after a half-term property inspection. This was performed by Letting People underling Chris. At this inspection, I raised my issues with the hot water and the condition of the carpet. Two days later, I received a letter in the post stating that the condition of the carpet was unacceptable, and I would be held liable for the cost of a replacement. This is after my recording the condition on the original inventory, and pointing it out to the agency employee on their visit. The timing of the message seemed to imply that if I was going to make complaints, the agency were willing to make things difficult. Luckily after stating my case this was not chased up further, but this behaviour either shows purposeful deception or else staggering levels of incompetence.
Further to their inability to rectify problems, studying the contract carefully you will find hidden costs at every turn (numbers may not be entirely accurate, working from memory):
‚£30 to borrow a spare key from the office if you find yourself locked out (yeah ok, my mistake).
‚£170 'check out administration fee' (remember the inventory doesn't get routinely updated, and nothing is cleaned between tenants, so god knows what this pays for).
A punitive 10% ƒÂ¢¢â€šÂ¬‹Å“admin fee' from your deposit ADDED to the cost of any work they have carried out following your checkout (sure this wouldn't stand up to dispute however).
The level of evasiveness I have described is shared by all the employees I dealt with (you will rarely speak to the same person twice). I can only assume the owners either provide some kind of training in how to ignore problems, or else have a robust vetting process to employ only those who share their passion for customer neglect. The level of disgust with which 'local entrepreneur' Caroline Kempster manages to treat the tenants who have the misfortune of dealing directly with her is really something.
All I can say to conclude is that if these people are set on owning a property empire, they would be better off letting them via a real, professional letting agent rather than their own incompetent two-bit operation. A better solution still would be to put their investment into something less demanding, like premium bonds. Renting a property via this agency was a frustrating, stressful, expensive, and thoroughly unpleasant experience.
What agent could do to change your mind?
Ensure cleanliness of flat before moving in.
Ensure functioning of fridge and hot water.
Arrange proper repairs in a timely manner.
Offer reduction of rent to cover period in which they were in breach of agreement (by providing no hot water).
Offer apology when wrongfully accused of damaging carpet.
Ensure professional demeanour of all staff.
Not be such a greedy, ignorant, cost-cutting, unprofessional gaggle of clowns.
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