1 Star Review
Jan 09,2019
By:
'Anonymous'
Jan 09,2019
Branch: London, 122 Whitechapel High Street
Services: Lettings (as a Tenant)
Would you recommend?: No
Postcode: N7
Branch: London, 122 Whitechapel High Street
Lettings (as a Tenant)
Postcode: N7
7
people found
this helpful
As other reviewers have noted, this agency is to be avoided, in particular because of their completely unprofessional, not to mention unethical, behaviour. I must say I did not encounter many issues during my tenancy (although they are quite slow in responding to issues), but the way the agency handled the end of the tenancy was outrageous.
First of all, when vacating the property, the agency urges the tenants to use a cleaning company that obviously has ties to Chase Evans (the company has no website or contact information, the owner only uses a personal email provided by Chase Evans and the directory in Companies House indicates a residential address as the headquarters). Chase Evans will even mildly threaten the tenants that if they do not use this company, they are likely to suffer deductions on their deposit.
Secondly, the company Chase Evans uses for the inventory reports is Attic Inventory, whose unprofessionalism matches that of Chase Evans. To begin with, their check-out report will be much more detailed than the check-in one, and will include pictures of areas that were not checked in the latter. They will use this to try and make you pay for damages that were already present in the property, but were conveniently left out of the check-in report. They will also try to make you pay for damages that are actually included in the check-in report as well. As such, it is advisable to take as many pictures as you can of the property, both when you move and when you vacate.
Lastly, the way the company manages the deposit release process is abysmal. It took exactly 2 months and 20 days to release mine, and only did so after I threatened a dispute. During that time, I sent multiple emails and made several phone calls, only to be met with apathy, rudeness and in some cases deception.
I know it's difficult to reject a property you like solely on the basis of the agency offering it, but in this case I urge you to reconsider if you are planning to use Chase Evans. You are guaranteed to spend a lot of time arguing and potentially lose a significant amount of money later on. Unfortunately, filing a dispute through MyDeposits is not always a good solution, because the dispute process itself is badly run and will not guarantee you a fair outcome, even if you are in the right.
If you do decide to use Chase Evans, then please do the following:
- Take as many pictures as you can, from as many angles as you can, of the whole property and all furniture within, both during check-in and check-out
- Try your best to be present during the check-in and check-out process with Attic Inventory. During check-out, specifically enquiry why they are testing areas that were not tested during check-in
- The day you vacate the property, send the official request for your deposit to be released, meaning that the agency has 10 days to do so (they will try to argue that this is not the case, but this requirement under MyDeposits is clear)
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