Dear Mr Marsden

Thank you very much for your review. Despite the negative nature of your experience, such occasions always provide an opportunity for clarification, which we hope you will find beneficial and informative.

As you will appreciate, not only do we have a duty of care to our prospective tenants, but we are also obligated to provide a thorough and professional service to our Landlord clients, which includes vetting and referencing applicants with the right level of diligence. This sometimes means referencing more than one potential applicant, with a view to securing the best possible tenants. We do this to satisfy both ourselves and our clients that we are handing over their property to tenants who will meet the highest possible standards of property upkeep and payment conduct. However, it is our company policy to refund referencing fees in full to tenants, in the event that their applications are unsuccessful. Although, we had not yet concluded your referencing and your application had not been deemed unsuccessful, when you chose to withdraw from the referencing process we refunded your application charge in full within 30 minutes of your partner confirming bank account details.

In this instance, we did not reject your application, and had you not withdrawn your application, you may well have qualified as tenants once our due diligence was completed. Despite your claim that we did not keep you appraised of developments, I can confirm that we had a number of conversations with your partner to update her as to the references which were outstanding during the week within which your application was made. Also, please note that the viewing appointment was booked by your partner who provided her contact details. We had no means of contacting you in place of your partner, as you did not leave any contact numbers on your application form.

Unfortunately, tenant referencing often takes longer than some tenants may find convenient and can leave you in an inconvenient grey area in terms of when to submit notice on your current residence. While we cannot apologise for conducting referencing services with the requisite level of care and attention, we wish to apologise if it was not made clear at the outset that referencing can often take longer than anticipated. This is purely because much of the information we require must come from third parties such as employers and previous Landlords or agents, all of whom we cannot legislate for in terms of the speed of their response.

I hope the above information satisfies your queries and concerns, and we would conclude by stating that we would be happy to consider your application, should you ever wish to rent through Bill Wych & Co Estate Agents in future.

Regards


Paul Campbell LLB (Hons) MARLA
Branch Manager
BILL WYCH & CO