“Please, please, please avoid them.This is the kind of ......”
1 Star Review
Jun 14,2017
By:
'Filip'
Jun 14,2017
Branch: London, The Pavillion, 4 Walworth Road,
Services: Lettings (as a Tenant)
Rent PCM: £2170
Would you recommend?: Yes
Postcode: SE1
Branch: London, The Pavillion, 4 Walworth Road,
Lettings (as a Tenant)
Rent PCM: £2170
Postcode: SE1
1
people found
this helpful
Please, please, please avoid them.
This is the kind of company that you're warned about when you hear about housing in London.
We rented an apartment in the Strata building and here's everything that went wrong:
1. Ridiculous fees. Apart from referencing, you pay £360 for the contract. But this doesn't include everything, as you will pay £90 every year to extend your tenancy. Don't want to extend it? Too bad, as there's a check out fee of £90 in the contract as well. I assumed this is all standard when I signed, but it turned out it isn't.
2. The minimum charge for all repairs is £30 per the contract. We paid for professional cleaning, yet the landlord said that one of the toilets was not clean enough due to the base being heavily scaled. How much does it cost to clean the part of the toilet where the shit lands? Doesn't matter - £30 is the minimum and we had to pay it.
3. The apartment came with 3 light bulbs not working - even the inventory admits it. This wouldn't be too bad if those weren't those Aurora bulbs which cost £15 each.
4. The apartment had some old sheets, rugs and used things from the previous tenants which were supposed to be removed (which, again, the inventory confirmed). When we asked the agent, they just dodged it and told us to put it somewhere where it won't bother us.
5. The mattresses in the apartment were in a bad state, with the middle caved in. When we brought this up, the agent contacted the landlord and she insisted the mattresses were new, so we just dropped it.
6. A month after we moved in, someone from the agency contacted us saying we have not as yet returned a signed copy of your inventory and schedule of condition (the inventory and schedule of condition came to us as a PDF, which I pointed out). The person just sent another e-mail asking again to sign it and then never contacted us again.
7. The agency kept our service (spare) key. This wasn't a big problem, but the agent wanted to show the apartment when we weren't around. When we offered several alternatives, they pointed out they can just let themselves in using this key. We specifically said we're not OK with this and they didn't, but it just seemed unprofessional at best for them to even suggest using the service key this way.
Please keep in mind all of these things were something Gordon & Co were legally allowed to do - for the fees, we signed the contract. For the old sheets and mattresses, we could've checked before we signed. In both cases, we simply assumed best intentions on their side, yet our trust was misplaced.
There are better, nicer, more professional, cheaper letting agents in London. Please take this into consideration before you go with Gordon & Co.
Finally, to end on a lighter note, a few words of praise - Lisa Archbutt, the Assistant Head of Residential Management, was really good. She was extremely responsive and really did her best to solve what was within her jurisdiction.
Comment on agent fees
You pay them £360 for the contract.
Then £90 if you want to extend it. Every year.
Minimum charge for all repairs are £30 per the contract.
There's a "check out fee" of £90 in the contract.
So yeah, it's a ripoff.
1
people found
this helpful
Was this helpful?
Yes