Oakhill Property Services

We tried to explain to you on several occasions that we, Oakhill, are NOT the landlord but unfortunately our explanations of how the landlord/agent relationship works met with little success. We spend a lot of time trying to get this point across at the beginning and during a tenancy, some people get it, some don't. WE didn't attempt to withhold any moneys from your account, it was your LANDLORD who made that decision - as we told you multiple times. Deposit legislation is perfectly clear - ONLY the landlord can decide what deductions he wants from the deposit; as agent we are obliged to put that deduction forward to you as we have a contractual obligation to act on the landlords instructions. Sadly we had no influence on the landlords decision here. In this case the landlord decided he wanted to try to claim for redecoration and insisted on putting a claim forward through his agent, ignoring our advice on the matter. He lost. There was no deceit intended on providing a quote through my own company; we often do that in order to keep costs down for people as OPM is not VAT registered. You fail to point out that the quotes were requested by the landlord based on HIS decision on what HE wanted to claim for. It is also notable that you fail to point out that it was in fact the cheapest of the 3 quotes you were provided with and it was withdrawn by me for no other reason than any additional quote was certainly going to be higher than ours but if thats what you wanted then so be it. I admitted that there had been some shortfalls in the actions of two members of staff and dealt with them accordingly. However, your aggressive nature when communicating with us at times made it a challenging tenancy. Anyway, life is short and I suspect we are both happy that we don't need to speak to each other again.

Ray Thanks for your prompt reply. I fuly understand that you were the agent and not the landlord. Apologies if it seemed that I have not understood you, or the situation at any point. You stated to me verbally 'looking at the final inventory, there will be charges'. This conversation happened before you had a response from the landlord, therefore suggesting that it was your decision / recommendation. This point of view was also adopted by Bernadette (Oakhill member of staff), who confirmed this by email. I can forward a copy of this to you if it helps with staff training. Finally, Oakhill (as agents) processed the claim (with TDS) on the lanlords behalf, therefore endosing his claim. The fact remains that if I had accepted the £350 charge for the re-painitng, you're own Company (being the cheapest quote) would more than likely have gained from this. To me, this seems a little un-ethical and I am entitled to my point of view. I have been factual in all of my emails and never aggressive. All I have ever done is defended my rights as a tenant. The flat was left in an immaculate condition and I always paid my rent on time. By reporting my issues on this forum, I feel that I am informing the general public about my experiences as a tenant so that they can make their own informed decision. Your aggressive response Ray says more about you than me

Rachel Thank you for your apology, it is appreciated and accepted. I believe this site is a valuable resource for tenants to avoid bad landlords/agents, but I also believe it is important to get the facts into context hence my explanatory reply to your post; your initial post could have been, and probably has been, misconstrued by some readers as being Oakhill who attempted to claim money from your deposit when it was in fact the landlord. This of course would have been an unfair representation of what actually happened and needed to be addressed. I'm sorry if you saw my response as aggressive, I had hoped it would be seen as informative. As an advice to any other tenants reading this it is also pertinent to point out that an agent sending in a deposit claim isn't an endorsement of that claim, it is part of the service an agent has to provide as part of their full management package. The TDS give a great explanation of the deposit legislation and how a dispute should be handled on their website at www.tds.gb.com for anyone who is interested

Crikey. Just stumbled upon this thread, and frankly, I'm shocked at the tone of what I've read. Oakhill - you've got some serious work to do on your communication skills!

Wow - I was thinking of renting a property from you but I certainly won't now. I also think your response is quite aggressive.