Dear Debbie,

Thank you for your response. However, I cannot agree with some of the points you make. Although our contract was with Bannits, we took out a new lease with NOPS, and paid an extra deposit because you raised the rent by 8%. I had to chase the landlord, a Bannits representative and a NOPS representative repeatedly over a period of 4 weeks before it was returned to us. Our tenancy deposit scheme, under which the Bannits deposit was protected, also informed us that the NOPS top-up deposit had never been protected, which is illegal.

Also, with regards to the repair that our flat needed: this was a wall that had been damp since we moved in, and it gradually got worse. The damp specialist that the council sent over, said that the whole wall would need to be stripped to uncover the problem, and dry out for a couple of months. Fed up with NOPS and with the issues, we offered to move out immediately so that the work could take place. The NOPS representative literally said to us that the landlord did not want the property to be empty for even a week - new tenants moved in as soon as we left, and nothing had been done apart from you providing us with a dehumidifier (which ran on electricity we paid for), and a strip of black rubber on top of the wall, which did nothing. I would be very surprised if you had fixed the issue even now. It is detrimental to tenants' health, and I cannot give you a clearer example of the fact that NOPS really do not work in tenants' interest as you claim elsewhere on this page. Thank you for taking the time to reply to mine and other comments, but from the sheer amount of negative reviews on here listing again and again the same issues, I think it is clear that there are serious issues with the service that NOPS provide. You claim on here that you are happy to be contacted, but you never responded to my many emails and phone calls when I was still a tenant. Turning things around at NOPS will take more than a few half-hearted apologies and excuses.

When we took over the management from Bannits we were not given any of the deposits to be returned. Bannits hold all of the deposits for all of their properties. We carry out the checkout and note down any deductions that may be required. We hand all of the information back to Bannits and they are responsible for returning your deposit money. We do not know why they didn't do this within 10 days.

We can only apologise for any confusions that arose from the differences between the Bannits contracts and our own. We can assure you that we never "consciously try to cheat tenants out of money". In fact, we set a very high ethical standard for ourselves (http://www.nops.co.uk/about-nops-content-container/about_us/professional-standards/) and we always try to keep the properties we manage in excellent condition.