“To anyone who is looking to take a tenancy agreement ......”
1 Star Review
Jul 14,2013
By:
'Near'
Jul 14,2013
Branch: Witney, 3-4 Kingfishers Court Northfield Farm Lane
Services: Lettings (Prospective customer)
Would you recommend?: No
Postcode: OX28
Branch: Witney, 3-4 Kingfishers Court Northfield Farm Lane
Lettings (Prospective customer)
Postcode: OX28
10
people found
this helpful
To anyone who is looking to take a tenancy agreement up with gatekeeper, please read all the negative reviews below as each one of them is telling the ultimate truth about this estate agency firm.
We viewed a flat with David one evening last week, we went away feeling really happy, as it was exactly what we were looking for. We'd asked David and the agents in the office about the fees and were informed that there was only one fee of £250 upfront to take the property off the market and start the application process. We were told it would include the referencing, inventory fees and admin fees to draw up the contract. We greatly accepted as we'd asked other agents who added so much more onto their prices.
When we received the electronic login, there was an example contract which you are asked to read and accept their terms and conditions. We spent a while going over the contract and it all seemed very straight forward, so proceeded by paying our £250 and our contract was AUTOMATICALLY generated (no actual admin involved in this).
When we downloaded our tenancy agreement, we noticed charges had been added in that we'd never seen before.
Firstly, a £37.50 charge if we fail to change the energy suppliers back the the original suppliers when we move out.
Secondly a £120 + VAT charge for 'check-out'.
Thirdly a 'Landlord permission request' of £25 + VAT - for example if you want to install Sky you must ask Gatekeeper for them to obtain permission from the landlord. Why you cant ask the landlord directly? Because they refuse to give the landlords details as they are 'employed by the landlord and are his/her representative' - This is a legal requirement that you should receive the landlords details if you ask for them!
The worst charge of all, has to be the 'compulsory' tenant insurance at £15.30 a month for YOU to insure YOUR OWN belongings!
I crossed this out on our tenancy agreement as in section 1.Z it states:
'Insure through my agent (Gatekeeper) (or provide a suitable policy that covers the same items and insurable amounts) your own belongings and valuables and insure all furniture fixtures and fittings at the property against accidental damage.'
I then received an extremely lovely phone call on a Friday afternoon at 4pm, from Lucy Ford, Property Care Director, telling me that by crossing this out and other things that were irrelevant to us in the contract, that I had VOID the contract as it is a LEGAL document and you are not allowed to "deface" it. I then told her that I was merely informing them that we wanted to take out our own contents insurance. She refused this idea and insisted we either pay for this insurance or find an equivalent one by Monday 5pm. I told her this was an unreasonable time frame and asked to see their terms & conditions / policy agreement for this "amazing" insurance policy.
She got very shifty when I asked again for her to send through the T's & C's, and for an extension to the following Friday. She responded with aggressive salesman behaviour, was extremely rude, even threatened to cancel our tenancy agreement and told me 'Gatekeeper aren't the estate agents for you if we're having this trouble from the start'.
The reason they wanted us to take out this insurance was to name THEM the beneficiaries of any insurance claim on YOUR belongings.
Judging by all the other negative comments we had a lucky escape when she decided to cancel our tenancy agreement and refund me the £250 (still waiting for this to come back to me).
Don't trust them to give you your deposit back either, they clearly don't use the national deposit scheme as any interest earned goes directly to the government for managing the scheme. It should never go to the agent or landlord!
What agent could do to change your mind?
Fraudulent agency!
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