Category: Agencies

Letting and Estate agents

CPS

CPS casually double booking the house and performing a B&E to try and double book again!

We were delayed moving in until the end of September as the property had been sub-let to another party over summer – despite us paying a summer retainer (so we couldn’t even store our things over summer). His official excuse was that there was work being done at the house or something but there wasn’t any work done whatsoever.

At the start of lockdown an email was received from landlord via his agent that assumed we were going home during the lockdown that we were to turn in our keys for the property and move our things out, but to CONTINUE PAYING THE RENT?

So none of us went home and we informed him of this fact. He then turned up at the house and LET HIMSELF IN to check if we were still there! (aka to check if we were lying in our email.) This whole thing I can only assume was an attempt to yet again sublet any properties that were left vacant for the end of their tenancies despite the tenants still paying FULL RENT. We were also perplexed at why there were none of the usual household items (e.g. toaster, kettle, hoover, iron, mop, etc.) and we inquired about this, the response was along the lines of “we stopped providing these items to tenants after one group clogged a vacuum cleaner with a sock, the property was ‘let as seen’, even though we had seen these things when viewing the property and they were not the belongings of the previous tenants and that they were going to carry out an inspection in the next week BECAUSE we didn’t have these items and therefore they expected to find something out of place?

Some quick fire points about CPS:

  • Giving 14 minutes notice for a viewing
  • When we didn’t let them in, they got a key and let themselves in
  • When confronted about the lack of notice, the agent in question seemed to have no idea that the law I quoted to her had been broken or even existed in the first place – although her acting was terrible so I don’t believe it for a moment. [Editors note: Can confirm what CPS did here is illegal, 24h notice must be given and this is breaking and entering!]
  • CPS and the landlords have in general have been difficult to get in touch with and/or get a response from.

Rent: ?

Deposit Returned?: Still living at the hole in question

John Winter

John Winter thinks students should rent two houses at once

So John Winter pride themselves on having a good reputation with students, which means they pride themselves on absolutely f all. My housemates were sent from Satan himself, broke every T&C of the contract, surely meaning it’s void and I can leave the tenancy for my own mental and physical health? However, I was not allowed and was advised to just rent a second property if I didn’t like this one, because that’s suitable for my student budget. 🙄

Maintenance people are constantly walking in unannounced to do unnecessary things. I begged for support from JW because it was becoming impossible for me to stay in the house, (which by the way is not up to the exceptional standards they claim to have) but I was palmed off. We all asked for support during the global pandemic, and even with JW having a mortgage holiday, our rent was not subsidised following the actions of Cardiff uni accom and other landlords. Staff are money hungry and unhelpful. Wouldn’t recommend.

Deposit Returned?: Didn’t have one

Pinnacle

5 Clodien Avenue

I lived at 5 Clodien Avenue for two years between 2017-2019. I rented the house through Pinnacle, who let it as a three-bedroom but we later had someone move into the smaller room making it a four-bed. My landlord was Rebecca Lewis Jones. I paid around £330 during my time there.

When I first moved in the lock was faulty, and it took an hour and a half to get a locksmith out to let us in. I rented a van by the hour and so had to pay the extra costs. Pinnacle refused to reimburse this saying the lock wasn’t broken. The lock was incredibly unreliable needing a certain twist and push on the door to get it open. Pinnacle refused to replace it and it took me a year to get used to opening it properly.

The house itself was lovely but it soon became clear the landlord didn’t want the place let to students as it used to be her own home. This lead to some tension with her telling us we couldn’t use blu-tack or door hangers because of the damage. We spoke to Pinnacle and they said it was fine as any damage would come out of the deposit.

A few months after moving in a leak dripping from the kitchen ceiling, we immediately called Pinnacle and they sent a plumber over several hours later. This was despite repeated calls saying the dripping was getting worse. The plumber turned the water off and left and within the next hour, the ceiling collapsed into our kitchen.

Pinnacle didn’t come out to check the damage until the next day and we were unable to use the kitchen or any electronics near it as we were afraid of the electrical damage. They fixed it over the next few days and did a good job but we lost several dishes in the damage and the smell of damp was horrible.

After this incident, I started talking to the landlord, Rebecca Lewis Jones, directly. She was very nice and worried about all of us after the accident. She seemed to have lost a lot of faith in Pinnacle after they took so long to stop the leak and if we had any maintenance issues from that point on we went through her. She often replaced things like a broken freezer quickly but only used a single contractor that she trusted, if he was busy it would take weeks to fix something. He was lovely but she wouldn’t always listen to his suggestions, such as adding a better extractor fan in the bathroom. This meant he would repaint over the mould and it would just come back again. She did let us have a cat for a £100 deposit, we had that added into the contract with Pinnacle.

Overall I had a good experience living there but I wouldn’t want to renew due to the cost and the constant mould in the bathroom. Pinnacle took two months of emails and phone calls to get my deposit back but I did get it back in full. Overall the landlord was ok but Pinnacle was a frustrating middleman in the renting.

Rent: £330

Deposit Returned?: Yes