Dan, I'd be interested to learn how the legal procedures went as I'm not entirely sure you can sue somebody for putting into print the absolute truth & especially when there's plenty of corroborative evidence?

Dear Mr Sanders,

I was disappointed & surprised to read your review on this portal and apologise it has taken me this long to come back to you in response.

Considering our limited interactions over your 6 month tenancy (which if memory serves was a single email checking on a rent payment due to an accounting error at our end for which we promptly and profusely apologised) I do find your comments that we are "Liars, crooks and unprofessional, uncaring money grabbing snobs" somewhat excessive.

With regards to the deposit, it was expressly written in your tenancy agreement that the check-out would be charged to you as tenants (the landlord paid for the inventory as part of the cost sharing) and you did initial this page so it was considered as read. Smartlet contacted you directly prior to completion of tenancy to arrange the check-out with you so it is clear that at no point did we fail to tell you that a third party was being used. The report was provided to your lead tenant the next working day and the option to return & attend to the minor items mentioned within the report was offered in an attempt to maximise your return. There was then a delay whilst your lead tenant queried the report with the inventory company prior to requesting (6 days later) permission to go back and attend to the minor items mentioned the next day. It was as much of a surprise to ourselves as yourselves when on entry you discovered the landlord had opted to refurbish the flat as they had not informed us of this. Had they done so we would not have arranged a formal check out however the landlord was not prepared to cover the check-out fee as it was mentioned as your responsibility in the contract despite my protestations to them. We then promptly agreed with your lead tenant that there was no case to answer with the remainder of deposit and refunded it in full less the contracted check-out charge - please note we do not earn anything from the check-outs, these were (prior to the Tenant Fees Act 2019) charged at cost to the tenant as per the tenancy agreement. The £90 charge therefore was not to refund your money, the £90 was for the accompanied check-out with an independent, third party company to ensure fairness in regards to supplying an accurate condition of report on vacation. The purpose of appointing a lead tenant on a tenancy agreement is to ensure there is one clear channel of communication to avoid, as you called it, bureaucratic hell. No one was "fobbed off" to anyone else, we merely communicated directly with the lead tenant as mentioned in the assured shorthold tenancy.

With regards to tenancy setup costs, we sub contract our tenant sourcing to Brand Vaughan so this issue is between yourself and them, not us.

I do not recall any failure to provide requested information. The deposit was registered within a week of receipt from the sourcing agent and the certificate was supplied to the lead tenant shortly after - well within the 28 days required. The other accompanying paperwork was supplied as part of the signup pack by the sourcing agent. The inventory was provided by Brand Vaughan on sign-up and, as mentioned above, we forwarded the check-out report the next working day after your vacation.

Regarding us being unempathetic, we did in fact agree a payment plan with the landlord on behalf of one of your housemates when he suffered an arrears situation due to non-receipt of salary and wrote off 3 late payment charges on his account accordingly to assist with his situation so this claim is pertinently false. As the landlord had rent & legal insurance this did become an issue when it stretched into the third month however we managed to resolve it on his behalf with both the landlord and insurer. Also, as previously mentioned, I did make the suggestion to the landlord that they covered the check-out charge due to their failure to advise us that the property was being refurbished but sadly they refused.

Finally regarding your comment that our tenant fees are "Terribly high and also misleading. They lied to us about correct fees and we were forced to part with significantly more than expected", we never earned a fee from your tenancy bar our management commission from the landlord so this claim is again false.

I will be raising the above points with AllAgents and our solicitor as your review is false the main and both deliberately misleading in parts & libelous in others.

Regards,
Dan Greet
Letting Manager pp. Jonathan Rolls Property & Estate Management