Key Letting Us Down

I signed with Keylet. Moved in, arranged inventory inspection. Booked the morning off work, waited half hour after booked time for the inspection. Called them – nothing in the diary, the person that does it is off sick. I completed one independently and took images (luckily), sent this to them via email and dropped it off to the office.

I reported 18 repairs using their app. Only two of these were actually dealt with (damp – painted over and bathroom door). Things I reported included: mould, damp, oven broken, leak under the sink, mice, rubbish and unclean when I moved in to the property, bathroom door did not close.
– There was someone’s lunch and other rubbish as well as it being unclean throughout the flat when I moved in. Said they would get someone to come and clean it but never did.

Asked them 3 times to send me updated version of the inventory I conducted, never received it.

Moving out: the costs for what they had found on the inspection conveniently totalled up to the total deposit I paid £575. Including charges for a broken sofa (was not damaged), removal of rubbish (nothing left in there apart from furniture they provided & as if they remove rubbish anyway considering the state it was in when I moved in), painting (nothing wrong with the painting whatsoever) and so on. It was all ridiculous and completely false. Conveniently they also could not find the inventory I did and had one on their file which was incorrect.


Luckily I took photos and had the email I sent. They ended up only taking £100. Still not great but I decided to take the hit. It took about 5/6 months to resolve. They stated in emails they would respond within 10 working days but would take weeks.

I have spoke to other people who have rented from them who have faced the same problems and them trying to rip them off.

I am so relieved to not have anything to do with Keylet. They are SHOCKING and I would AVOID them at all costs!!!

Rent: £575

Deposit Returned?: Partially

Expect a literal shit hole if you rent with Keylet and Richard Roberts

Keylet were pretty good at first, and helped us negotiate a short-term let on a house in Splott. The landlord was Richard Roberts and the house was 142 Moorland Road, Splott. It was a nice house, and was actually one we’d already visited when we were doing house viewings for buying our house.  There was a huge crack in one wall, indicative of serious subsidence.  Keep an eye on this crack, we’ll see it again.  We saw the crack, said that there’s no way we’d buy a house with subsidence, and moved on.  How curious to be living there whilst our house purchase goes through!

We had a few nice months there, then our house purchase went through and we made the arrangements to move out.  One morning, a week before our moving day, I went into the garden to put some scraps on the bird table and noticed something yukky in the side yard by the kitchen… used toilet paper!  The drains were backing up.  Not a problem, this happens, we contacted KeyLet using their website reporting system and they sent someone round who tried to jet it.  No luck.  He said that the drain must have collapsed further down, and he demonstrated that when he fired the jet the water (and sewage) backed up out of the manhole he said was under the decking – you could see the water and sludge coming up between the decking planks.  Keylet decided that this meant it was Welsh Water’s problem, and put in a request to them.  The next day (day three now) Welsh Water came round and the first thing the chap said to me was “I’ve been here before”.  Turns out he’d been here for the same issue a few years back and the drain had collapsed in the garden.  He put the camera down and showed me… you could see that the blockage-to-sewer bit of the drain was bone dry, there hadn’t been any water down there in ages. 

Later I put in a request to Welsh Water to get a copy of all the historical requests on the property. So Welsh Water batted it back to Keylet, who sent someone else round the next day, and decided that he couldn’t do anything because he’d have to lift the decking to get to the manhole cover and he needed permission from the landlord for that and he went away again.
The next day, day five, two chaps came back and lifted the decking and discovered not a manhole but a sinkhole, with a huge space underneath, seriously huge.  This had been going on years.  The drain was completely collapsed and there had been lots of soil erosion.  The whole thing was a giant sludge of years of human waste, a literal open sewer.  The landlord had the problem a few years back and instead of fixing it they put decking over the hole, and that is almost certainly why the property had subsidence.

I was a little upset by this but not entirely surprised.  Keylet agreed to arrange for cleaning for our goods in the garden that were now spattered with mud and shit, and we moved out leaving the property empty but our rent paid until the end of the following month.  Over the next few days I returned to the property to arrange cleaning, collect mail, and nose at the repairs.  It was immediately obvious that the repair was not being done properly.  I did some internet research on the issue and spoke to a chap I know in the business and the garden should have been opened right up.  Somehow they managed to repair the collapsed drain without any evidence of opening the hole up more to get an actual drain pipe in there, or any sign of hardcore or other filler going in.  Still, maybe they managed to get it done properly but I doubt it.  Meanwhile, I’m trying to get Keylet to get our garden stuff cleaned and they’re trying to get me to remove it.  In the end they provided us with a giant huge unmanageable tarp to put in our car and a hand steamer for cleaning it… a steamer rated for use indoors only.  It was the most passive-aggressive response to our request imaginable.   Like, they accepted it was their fault our stuff was covered in shit but they were going to do their best to ensure it couldn’t be cleaned properly! 

Oh yeah, and when I visited to take final meter readings there was a chap plastering over the giant crack. I expect that some poor sod has brought the house and will first learn of the subsidence when the back of the house falls into a giant hole in the back garden.

I did some research and realised that we couldn’t sue because the standard of evidence is too high and the price of legal representation is too steep.  It would cost us thousands to get, at best, hundreds.  But we did discover that Keylet hadn’t protected our deposit because why would they bother with something like the law, so we filed a court case and they settled before the case for a few grand.  Remember kids if you don’t have a protected deposit then you get 2-3 times the amount from the courts.

Rob Piazza is the bright light through the KeyLet keyhole!

Honestly a positive review of a landlord was the last thing I’d have expected two years ago. Renting a house on Cathays Terrace and can honestly say I wouldn’t rent with anyone else. Our boiler broke a couple weeks ago; he came round within half an hour to fix it. Switch board kept fucking up; he came over that day. Washing machine was leaking; bought us a new one within a week. Sofas were old and shedding their material; bought us new ones that were delivered by the end of the week. A lop sided bed base; new one was delivered the following day.

I’ve had some shit landlords in Cardiff, but if you’re ever lucky enough to rent with Rob it’ll be a dream. Have signed on to live in another one of his properties for the upcoming year. Even though there’s some miserable sods in Keylet it was so worth the trouble.

Rent: £300

Deposit Returned?: Yes

🎵 5 Taps leaking, and 4 fucked radiators, 3 unhappy tenants, 2 toilets leaking and a Completely broken bed!!! 🎵

Keylet’s motto is ‘let’s open doors together’ but what they don’t tell you is, they’ll also slam them right back in your face and jam your fingers in them while they’re at it.

We moved into our property with the sofa having rips in it, marks on the walls and carpet, but overall the flat seemed lovely..for now.

5 taps a leaking, 4 fucked radiators, 3 unhappy tennants, 2 toilets leaking and one completely broken beeeeeeeed ( as well as the door dropping from the hatch). And we’d had enough. Called them up, only to be told you absolutely HAD to send it through fixflo ( oh but don’t forget, you can ONLY submit once otherwise the staff get confused…you have to question their intelligence level if THAT confuses them)

When we moved out, these problems still were not fixed and we actually now ALSO had a broken window. You love to see it.

The place was SPOTLESS. And I mean there was not a sign of dust anywhere…so with a spotless flat but multiple problems reported to Keylet that they did not fix. We didn’t expect the whole deposit back knowing their track record.

Please enlighten me as to how we got charged for none of these problems, despite them not being fixed. But had over £500 removed from our deposit in ‘general cleaning’ and ‘paint retouching’ when we provided proof the wall markings were there when we moved in? £300 to paint tiny marks? Are you hiring someone to paint one stroke a day? Will they be flying from Antarctica to do this paint job? Are you reincarnating Van Gogh for this? The marks were barely noticeable!!!!

In addition to this, we didn’t even see our deposit for 2 months and were repeatedly ignored in emails and rudely spoken to when we called to chase up on it.

For your own sanity, don’t rent with Keylet.

P.S. They walked into our flat unannounced on numerous occasions and once we were all asleep in our rooms and they still came in x

[Editors note: Creepy and illegal by Keylet]

Rent: £370

Deposit Returned?: Partially