Avoid at all costs
I am a current tenant with Flats in Leeds coming to the end of my tenancy. When we initially signed with them we were charmed and taken with the property more than them, for the first 10 months we had no issues but this is mainly due to any problems being dealt with by the building manager in the office of our building and not from the flats in leeds staff, as soon as it came towards the end of the tenancy however is when problems started to appear.
We informed flats in leeds of our intention to move out of our the property at the end of our agreement, we got confirmation of this in writing. 2 weeks later however we got an email asking if we were interested in staying the property as we were due to be moving out soon.confused? so was I, I contacted them immediately to find out what was going on, they apologised having blamed an 'error on the system'this would prove to be a recurring problem.
Shortly after this we had a letter from a company called CountryWide saying they now owened flats in leeds and for us to stop payment to them and to start paying with the new details belowyet no information from flats in leeds to inform us that this was happening and to expect a change to our payments, after a long phonecall with them about the very unprofessional way this was handled and how I would not pay until I felt that this was a legit action and Countrywide did actually own flats in leeds, unfortunately flats in leeds couldnt provide me with any of this information how did I find out if this was legit? The building manager.
Not even a week after we recieved this letter did flats in leeds attempt a viewing (note here that in their own tenancy agreement it says that they must provide '24 hours written notice to attempt a viewing', they just walked into our flat (thank god one of us was home) to which they were kindly informed that no they could not view the flat as a) we hadn't been given any notice, so b) the flat was not in viewable condition. Their argument for this was 'an error on the system said you had already moved out'so they seem to have believed that they were taking money for a flat that was no longer occupied(alarm bells anyone?)
Once again I had a very lengthy discussion with their staff about these issues and how I believe it is not acceptable.
From here on out they have seemed to try and play more by the book that was until last night. I recieved an email stating there would be a viewing today and if we had any issues to contact them straight away, we are currently in the process of packing so I thought it would be polite to let them know that the flat will be fit for viewing if they could apologise on our behalf as we are moving in less than a week so we've had to start packing (their agreement states that the property for viewings must be in a livable condition as to say that you cant actually have boxes out if your packing as its not how it normally would bebiggest pain ever when your moving). I got the email 5 minutes after it was sent as I happened to be online at that time, so I went to ring and the office was already closed for the evening.
They leave letting you know until just before the office closes so you can't do anything about it, yet they dont seem to realise that in fact thats not giving 24 hours written notice, I counted this last one at 22 hours and the two before that at 20 hours.so they can't even keep to their own agreement.
I've already sated that I will be present for the final inspection and I will be taking full note of the property before they arrive and during so let's see if they try anything funny.
Do not rent with these people. They are expensive (everything from rent, signing fees and deposit), a pain to deal with, unreliable and certian members of staff are extremly unhelpful and downright rude. read more