Village Estates (Shipley)

The company is one of the worst we have rented from. They tend not to show people around the property expecting the tennants to show new tennants around. When they do show people around they are not friendly and tend to tell you stuff about 'potential' improvements the landlord is going to make but without anything to back up their claims. You have to pay a new signing fee of approximately £60 every time you renew, even when they do not manage the property as was our case. The company expects a £90 fee for checking the property at the end of the tennancy this would be okay but you only find out when you are physically signing the tennancy agreement. This was taken from our deposit without our consent. This was apparently to cover them inspecting the property and taking meter readings (something we provided when we moved out) The property was in a poor state of repair there were piles of dust on the floor, old pictures left dirt spots on the walls. Door handles were not properly attached, holes in plaster were not filled. There was writting on the walls of a bedroom. The electrics in the kitchen needed up dating and were not suitable for the 'load' of the appliances that came with the property meaning fuses kept blowing. Including the circuit boards in the cellar. Heating switches that were not deactivated or clearly labeled even when they were not intended for safe use. No one showed us around the property when we moved in to explain how the heating etc worked. Even prepairing the paper work for move in day was an ordeal as it took them half a day to print out two tennancy agreements (even with a weeks notice), this delayed our move in time (even when we had plans in place to move our furniture). The company also made up a figure to cover repairs to the property that we had agreed with the landlord were not our fault. This was negotiated down to a hundred pounds from £150 otherwise we would not have got our deposit back. The significant improvements we had made to property (clearing the garden and painting several rooms in the house at our own costs) did not get taken into account. The office staff do not know what each other is doing so when new tennants wanted to view you phone back and the person who called is not available then no one else knows anything about it.