My partner and I first came across the property advertised at The Strada in Edinburgh a couple of years ago and it seemed too good to be true - which should have been our first warning. The property was almost brand new looking and beautiful, and it was only £700 a month which, for a two bedroom new looking flat, was a bargain in the capitol. Unfurnished, which we liked, but with a fitted kitchen - more on that shortly. Everything was fine for the first year, we barely had any contact from the landlord and there wasn't any issues. Then almost right after our first year was up we got a letter from the Landlord telling us to contact the London branch immediately or we'd be evicted. Obviously such a harsh threat panicked us so we called them, and the London office informed us that they wanted to raise our rent, and the girl on the phone wanted to negotiate how much by...I was a bit taken, I've never had to haggle my rent before. Obviously I wasn't going to offer any increase, but they stated they would accept anything less than an extra £100 per month. We didn't want to move out just yet as we were saving to buy somewhere, so reluctantly accepted. After speaking to the neighbours we found out that they'd had the same thing happen, and everyone had theirs increased by different amounts depending on how much they had been willing to do. IRD promised us a new tenancy agreement with the rent increase, but this never appears despite me chasing it up a few times over the following 6 months. The threatening letters seemed to become a staple of IRD homes for anytime they want something done. After the company who owned the entire estate requested that all satellite dishes be removed, IRD threatened us with legal action or eviction if we didn't take down the one outside of our flat. Luckily I was able to use Google Street View to prove that the dish had been installed over a year prior to our tenancy. Then when we needed anything done IRD were virtually unattainable. Our washing machine broke done, and it took IRD four weeks to finally order a replacement. Then I had to remove it from the fitted kitchen myself, only to discover it was wired to the wall, and so I refused to tackle that and neither would the delivery guys of the new washing machine - which as it turned out had a plug and was not meant for a fitted kitchen. After threatening trading standards the Landlord finally appeared three days later and installed the new washing machine...which stood out against the fitted kitchen like a sore thumb, especially as I had to remove the wooden panel below the cabinets to fit it in. I'm convinced that the only reason that we got almost our entire deposit back quickly was because it was held through Deposit Scheme Scotland and not IRD Homes. They are by far the worst agency I've had to deal with, and I do wonder how much they adhere to the rules and regulations of property law.