Akelius

AVOID AKELIUS - WORST LANDLORD EVER Fordwych Road - June 2018 - ongoing If you are considering an Akelius property, STAY AWAY! Living in an Akelius property has been THE WORST experience I have had in nearly 15 years of renting properties in London. FOR OVER A YEAR NOW, I HAVE BEEN LIVING ON A LOUD, FILTHY AND UNSAFE CONSTRUCTION SITE! Save yourself the time and headache - go inform yourself and read the many bad reviews their tenants have posted online (Trustpilot, Google Reviews, Yelp). Now, search Google News for their negative media coverage. Then, ask yourself - why take the chance with Akelius? There are countless other properties with better landlords to choose from. COMPENSATION: After much complaining and having to unnecessarily follow-up my emails repeatedly as they were attempting to ignore me thinking I would eventually give up, Akelius reluctantly offered 20% rent reduction. They initially tried to scam me on this, only offering this starting many months after the works began, whereas another tenant received this since this very start, so when I mentioned this, they only then offered me backdated compensation. They eventually upgraded this to 30% with backdated compensation for the 10% difference. Between reductions, compensations, reimbursements, this totalled around £4,000 over 1.5 years. BACKGROUND AND NUMEROUS ISSUES: In July 2017, Akelius bought the large building where I have lived happily since 2014 with no issues. Therefore, in early June 2018, I was happy to sign my renewal for another year, this time under Akelius. Soon after, Akelius began a significant renovation of the entire 15-flat, multi-story building, which due to the large-scale would have required many months of advance planning by them. However, Akelius failed to inform me of this during renewal, thus intentionally omitted and withheld key significant information which would have affected my decision as a customer. This was a breach of Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. The construction work began in June 2018 and they formally informed us retrospectively WEEKS LATER by letter, only after tenants had enquired, which shows their carelessness. Since then, Akelius contractors have been loudly renovating the building six days a week from 8am, and often violate Council rules by working late after permitted hours. They have lied, initially saying the work would take a few months which has now taken OVER a year, as they fail to adhere to their own deadlines and extended over five times, which shows how poorly managed their construction has been. The construction work involved complete and thorough gutting of the building back to the shell, including hallway areas, and also extensive exterior work which involved covering the building with scaffolding, with construction materials and debris dumpsters everywhere outside. As this is non-essential work for no emergency or health or safety reasons, the noise caused by this breaches my legal right to peaceful enjoyment of the property. They make no effort to minimise disturbance since THESE WORKS ARE INTENDED TO HARASS AND FORCE TENANTS OUT IN ORDER TO RENOVATE THEIR FLATS WITHOUT HAVING TO FORMALLY EVICT THEM. The works have resulted in the building and constantly filthy with dust, dirt and debris everywhere, as well as food rubbish left behind by workers, as they barely do any cleaning. This has consequently attracted vermin which was never an issue previously with the building. Because they are doing work to the pipes and constantly turning the gas lines on and off, the radiator heating now acts temperamentally and making loud noise, therefore I am always having to top-up using an electric space heater, thus raising my energy costs, as heating is included in my rent. As further harassment, numerous times they have turned off essential services such as water and heating with no advance notice. The law requires 24 hours advance notice to tenants. Because of all this, I am constantly losing sleep and thus always tired and unwell. As I mainly work from home, the noise disturbance has significantly affected my work productivity and has literally made life miserable and stressful in my own flat due to all the ongoing noise and related issues, including the disrespectful nature of their contractors when having to approach them due to problems. In one instance, I was threatened and physically assaulted by two of their workers, yet Akelius blatantly ignored my emails twice when I reported this and subsequently followed-up. Their construction work has also caused damage to my flat and my belongs - once I came home find a pool of dirty water covering my floor and bedding which spilled through the ceiling from flat being renovated above me. Another time they busted through my bathroom ceiling, littering my bathroom with debris everywhere. Both times I had to clean this myself. Despite my numerous complaints, they took months to fully repair the ceilings, and offered NO APOLOGY. A third time they had to access my flat to do renovations inside and left cabling and wires hanging through a massive hole in the wall, assuming I would be perfectly okay with this, until I complained, and only then they came back to finish the job properly. When the works started, I disclosed my medically diagnosed asthma to the Akelius property manager, who is inexperienced and useless. They completely ignored this. The air quality in the building has been terrible with construction dust which also constantly seeps into my flat from under the door, significantly affecting my health for MONTHS and triggering my asthma. As such, I been ill more times than I usually am over the year, and constantly sneezing and coughing due to the dust in the building. After numerous complaining, Akelius only then implemented dust monitoring and prevention measures in the building - MANY MONTHS LATER! We contacted Camden Council and they discovered AKELIUS HAD FAILED TO APPLY FOR PLANNING PERMISSION for their unauthorised construction works. Camden discovered this after their unannounced site visit to the building and the council subsequently forced Akelius to make a planning application which they submitted many months retrospectively after the construction work began! As such, the way they redesigned the front driveway made the rubbish bins difficult for collectors to empty, so the Council stopped emptying them for several weeks, leading to overflowing, smelly bins during the summer which also attracted vermin to the property. We notified Camden/Environmental Health about this and they required Akelius to change the layout to make the rubbish bins more easily accessible for weekly collection. After many months of complaining to Akelius and seeing my complaints being ignored, in March 2019 I submitted a Subject Access Request under GDPR legislation asking for all data/information they hold on me. I received back internal emails of their staff LAUGHING about my complaints! They took the entire month to process my request only to provide me with incomplete records which I discovered after cross-checking this with some of my own information when I noticed many things were missing; this is despite being very clear, detailed and specific with my request so as to avoid any confusion by them. I even received emails with personal data and information of another tenant who has nothing to do with me! Therefore, in July 2019 I submitted a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) which they investigated. In October 2019, the ICO contacted Akelius with a written formal warning due to the many issues outlined in my complaint. In March 2019, I submitted a formal complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) when I noticed Akelius began advertising the newly renovated flats, even though they only renovated 8 of 15 flats. THEY FAILED TO MENTION THE ONGOING LONG-TERM CONSTRUCTION WORK TO THE BUILDING AS REQUIRED BY LAW. The ASA upheld my complaint, and this was noted on their website on 22 May 2019. They required Akelius to disclose this information in their advertisements to prospective tenants. As this happened after new tenants moved in, Akelius retrospectively presented them with a special form disclosing the construction works and required tenants to sign and return this, essentially signing away your rights to peaceful enjoyment of the property. During my second tenancy renewal in June 2019, Akelius attempted to make me sign this form. Through legal advice I discovered this form was unlawful under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, as UNFAIR TERMS, since “agreeing” to the noise caused by these non-essential works contradicts terms on my statutory legal rights to peaceful enjoyment of the property. As you can see, this company acts very carelessly, deceivingly and irresponsibly. Due to low quality renovation, the new flats have had many issues. They will only listen to your complaints if you refer to relevant laws and terms in your tenancy. I have contacted my local MP and they are involved in the situation and have formally written to Akelius. In my overall experience, Akelius staff have been very ineffective, rude and lazy in managing their properties and working with their tenants. The customer service is the WORST I have experienced of any company - they are unprofessional, have attitude problems, will lie and mislead you and ignore your telephone calls and emails. Akelius has absolutely no care towards their tenants whatsoever - they are only interested in your money and renovating their properties to benefit themselves financially and will leave you to your own if there is ever a problem. Despite numerous complaints, they fail to address issues properly, thus you are constantly in dialogue with them or chasing, which eats up your time and makes for an unnecessarily stressful, unhealthy and miserable experience renting their over-priced and poorly-managed properties. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED - AVOID AKELIUS - SAVE YOURSELF THE HEADACHE - RENT ELSEWHERE!