I'd dearly love to write a complimentary piece focused upon all the wonderful experiences I've had dealing with this company. I'm sure it would have been marvellous. Me, relaxed, fingers whirring manically across my keyboard, flamboyant yet insightful details about the fabulous nature of my time with MTM exploding across my laptop screen, loving compliments literally oozing out of my every orifice: ''With MTM I didn't just feel like a customer. I felt like family'; ''Wow, finally a letting agent that truly makes you feel at home! MTM didn't just let me a property, they let me enjoy it too!'. I could have even stuck in some pretty pictures. Perhaps a nice shot of me and the MTM team enjoying ice cream on the beach, or walking arm in arm down Brighton Pier, an expression of blissful exuberance stretched across our faces.
But no. No. Reality just had to conspire to destroy my quaint little fantasy, rendering it not only a little unrealistic, but indeed completely incompatible with any realistic documentation of the truth. Sadly my actual experience with MTM is a tale of woe, frustration, and a higher than average phone bill.
And yet it all started so well. We contacted them, found them happy to guide us through viewing after viewing, discovered a property we liked, and then went through the rather surreal process of sprinting to the nearest cash point, unloading our bank accounts of most of their funds, and then racing to MTM's offices in order to place a deposit down for the place before anyone else could. I guess you could say we were a little eager.
At this stage the MTM staff were quite adequately helpful, guiding us through the tenancy agreement, answering our naive questions, and generally doing everything a letting agent should do. Things even continued on in this vain for a while. A whole year in fact. The service was great. We rang them up with a problem and they solved it, sending round plumbers and new microwaves whenever we experienced difficulties. I guess you could say this was the honeymoon stage of our relationship. Everything seemed magical. Really, it was great, and I would have happily recommended the firm to most of my friends.
Sure there had been some signs of what was to come. When we first moved into the property they baffled us with their ardent assertations the overgrown forest in our back garden had been professionally tackled a week prior, and all those wonderful improvements the property was supposed to undergo over the summer had seemingly been forgotten. But hey, we had a house, and that satisfaction was quite sufficient to distract us away from such minor abnormalities. That is, until they started to cost us money.
Pleased with our MTM experience thus far, we arranged to let another property with them the following year, and found that process quite painless. They looked after us, arranged us viewings quickly and efficiently, and soon found us a new place to call home. We tidied up our old house like good students, drafting in our Mothers for all the bits requiring any actual hard work, and then waited patiently for our damage deposit to be returned to us in full. But it wasn't. To our great surprise we found ourselves being charged for an assortment of different reasons, which really didn't seem particularly fair or reasonable in our eyes, and our previously thick wad of cash was reduced to a tiny little pile.
But not to worry. That was irritating, sure, but we accepted it and moved on. We moved into our new MTM property a few weeks later, and found the service just as good as the honeymoon period. They answered our phone calls, solved our problems and were very helpful. Once again we found ourselves laughing in the faces of our fellow students, mocking their foolishness in not letting from our wondrous MTM. And once again things changed. Only this time far less acceptably.
At the end of the year we moved out as planned. Uni degrees complete and with most of us no longer needing a place in Brighton, our loving relationship with MTM was over. All that awaited us was the return of our deposits, and surely they wouldn't leach our funds away a second time? Well, no, they wouldn't, not exactly. Instead, thus far, they haven't paid us at all. Despite our completion of all the anal forms requested, numerous phone calls and numerous promises from their side that the money would arrive in three days, four days, Next Tuesday, or sometime soon, we've yet to see any materialise.*
This fact has slightly skewed my perception of the firm in general. Yes, our time with them was generally positive, and the service was frequently good, but that doesn't excuse their liberal attitude regards the taking of our money, nor their unprofessional behaviour in regards the repayment of damage deposits. Thus, sadly, I find myself only capable of awarding the firm two stars, which is a shame, as they certainly have the potential to be a five star company.
*-money eventually received 19/09/09 read more
