“Avoid this company if you value your peace of mind ......”
1 Star Review
Aug 15,2017
By:
'Chris'
Aug 15,2017
Branch: Kings Lynn, 20 High Street
Services: Lettings (as a Tenant)
Would you recommend?: No
Postcode: PE14
Branch: Kings Lynn, 20 High Street
Lettings (as a Tenant)
Postcode: PE14
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people found
this helpful
Avoid this company if you value your peace of mind and financial outlay! They are interested only in profits, their own (mainly) and by extension their landlords',and they'll try every trick to safeguard them. After several viewing cancellations, they failed to provide the promised heating efficiency and EPR reports, and copy contract, in advance, and on finally seeing the property it looked nothing like their website photo; nevertheless at that late stage I moved in owing to the chronic shortage of furnished accommodation in Cambs. It was immediately obvious why I hadn't received those advance documents: the heating efficiency (all electric) and insulation were abysmal, and the contract was backdated by several days to suit the landlady (who lived next door)! I had to fight to get it changed. The check-in inventory made no mention of the heating control points, and I was left with the mistaken idea that the timer right next to the immersion switch was, as you would expect, the immersion timer.
This was a costly mistake the first month. It turned out that there wasn't one, it was the switch for the outside lighting – the landlady had to enter to set it. She billed me direct for electricity – very excessive bills, as the bakelite input control switch on the decrepit storage heater that was the main heat source, broke in the first month and my complaints to Abbotts and the landlady went unheeded (like everything else in this company, property repairs were the responsibility of a remote impersonal Countrywide department, not the letting agent). However, I did succeed in getting an on/off switch fitted to the heated towel-rail, instead of having to stand on a high chair to access the fuse-box (and I am six feet tall).
Several phone-calls regarding these problems and the high electricity bills were simply ignored by Abbotts until I confronted them face to face. They came in for a scheduled inspection visit while I was away (unclear why this was necessary after two months) and either they or the landlady emptied my fridge and threw away usable items of food from my cupboards, for which I was offered £10 compensation when I returned and protested about it.
After four months of this, when I gave the required two months notice of termination (to Countrywide HO in Nottingham, not to the letting agent, by the way) I received a letter telling me to vacate the premises on an arbitrary date to suit the landlady again, and I again had to fight to get it corrected.
This is only an outline of the fiasco that was this tenancy. To facilitate the termination, I paid all bills up to date and cleaned the house thoroughly to Countrywide's stringent guidelines (quite obviously meant to deter), leaving only one trivial five-minute DIY job and to the best of my knowledge no breakages (I actually left one or two decent household items), but it was more than two months of wheeling and dealing (not ten days maximum, as MyDeposits stipulate) before my deposit was repaid - with deductions of £250!
Whatever your renting requirements it is just not worth getting into bed with this company – under any circumstances, ever.
Comment on agent fees
At first there seemed to be some uncertainty aboutb this, but I paid, I think, £400.
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