Jameson Knight

My expectations of London estate agents are generally pretty low. Mr Jagpal Singh (the director of the company) though is perhaps the worst of a bad bunch. In September 2014 we started renting a property from him which the agency managed. From the outset he demonstrated his completely lack of competency and professionalism. Landlords should be aware that no proper steps were taken to reference us as tenants e.g. providing ID, bank statements, guarantors etc... Before we even moved into the property there were issues, his office had given me the keys before the previous tenants had even moved out and they called expecting me to travel across London to return them. On the first day we moved in the property was filthy and had not been cleaned, let alone cleaned professionally as promised. When I called to complain Mr Singh was very aggressive and refused to acknowledge the issue, saying that I was merely creating problems and blamed me for the situation regarding the keys being given to me (remember by his own staff) too early. Throughout the next months of the tenancy Mr Singh was mostly unresponsive in dealing with our clearly laid out and detailed complaints regarding the appalling upkeep of the property. One of the worst issues being the extensive mould growth in each of the bedrooms and one of the bathrooms. Whenever I communicated with Mr Singh via email he often ignored my emails or would only respond to one specific enquiry, and responded in a manner which was consistently unprofessional in terms of approach and language. Sadly in the fifth month of our tenancy a fire occurred in one of the bedrooms, caused by a freak electrical accident, which rendered the property uninhabitable. Numerous failings of Mr Singh then came to light. It became apparent that the property was being rented as an unlicensed HMO (house of multiple occupation) without adequate fire detection or protection in the property, the consequence of which resulted in more significant fire damage to the property and meant he placed all tenants at significant risk. When I challenged him on this issue, he lied insisting this was not the case and lied a second time in writing in an email on the 13th January in which he claimed there were only four tenants in the property, therefore meaning a HMO license was not required. This instance is exemplary of his poor attitude towards dealing with our complaints and concerns in a highly unprofessional manner, I would like to know how he could have believed only four tenants were living in the property when he advertised the property as a five bedroom property had five tenants sign the contract and received five rent payments monthly. Our legal rights were also infringed upon him failing to provide the necessary prescribed information from the Deposit Protection Service. He failed also in your duty to draw up an inventory of the property and schedule of condition (again landlords beware), along with failing to respond in a timely manner to our requests for repairs to the property. We saw a continuation of this behaviour with regards to the repairs following the fire. There was been an unreasonable delay with the works, and after four months we were still unable to move back into the property. He even failed to comply with an enforcement notice issued by the council issued on the 18th February, which gave you a reasonable period of 8 weeks to complete the work. Mr Singh continually stalled in failing to reply to us or take appropriate action. The delay we faced was a result of the necessary works required by the council in order for the property to comply with the HMO regulations. These works were unrelated to any damage caused by the fire and yet we were been inconvenienced. Even the repairs he did undertake were inadequate, notably his insistence that the extensive smoke damaged had been cleaned, when in fact he had failed to do so and used inappropriate methods. Mr Singh consistently failed to respond promptly and appropriately to our reasonable communications, and those from our legal advisor. This failure was particular concerning as the communications related to his statutory repair obligations and safety regulations. These delays in communication and repair were completely unreasonable and forced us as tenants to suffer further in what had been a stressful ordeal. We were made homeless and forced to live in inappropriate temporary accommodation, meanwhile he continually demanded the payment of rent and threatened to initiate legal proceedings against us blaming us for the fire. Although this issue for us has finally been concluded I would recommend no one undertake any dealings with this company, or ANY company associated with Mr Jagpal Robert Singh. He is unprofessional, rude, incompetent and clearly lacks a knowledge of his legal responsibilities which is in fact dangerous to those who risk doing business with him. This man simply shouldn't be allowed to run a business. On top of all this he is personally generally a pretty odious individual.