Category: Pinnacle

Pinnacle

Pinnacle being the Pinnacle of shite

Pinnacle Lettings Agents are by far one of the worst companies I have dealt with in any capacity.

It would take me an age to describe all the things that have happened in our dealings with them, and you would most likely fall asleep or fall ill before you have finished reading it, so I am going to summarise slightly.

When we first went to move in to the house, moving truck and all, we arrived on the doorstep on the agreed move in date to a house with very few floorboards and full of builders, and were then told the house is not ready to move in yet. (no call or text or forewarning.) They put us up in a hotel for a few days (as per an agreement we put in to the contract because it was getting a bit sketch) and ultimately when the work was hurried finished we were moved in when they told us the house was ‘habitable’ as we could cook (just one microwave) and there was running water (the shower didn’t work, so wasn’t actually habitable) ((we had to pay for the hotel, it took them two months to refund us))

All the rooms were covered in dust and plaster and the house in general seemed previously derelict.

Despite weekly ( and sometimes daily ) emails from us (bare in mind the house was empty for over a year before this, they had a lot of time to do this)

The downstairs toilet had backed up sewage for the first month or two (full to the brim), god knows how long it was like that before we moved in. It was cleared but never cleaned, toilet was unusable and smelled of sewage, it was never cleaned, just cleared. Never functional, they said it was okay because of the amount of us we only needed one toilet.

Before we moved in the house was not cleaned to any standard, we had to attempt to transform it from a building site into a home.

The loft bedroom was not insulated well (some fancy people came round and investigated) so it was always melting hot or freezing cold.

Garden was never cleared and uninhabitable from last tenants. (they sent a contractor round but only paid him to sorta look at it and start bagging it)

When we moved in the freezer was not functional, we had to wait two months to get one.

When we moved in the oven was not working for six weeks. (they said it wasn’t a problem as we had a microwave)

[Editors note: If the inventory list has an oven on it, it’s under the assumption it’s working, your landlord has responsibility to make sure these things are working before you move in.]

When we (like the fools we are) resigned for a second year, we had to pay £100 resigning fee each, in which we resigned the literal first contracts again, dates were not changed at all – paid £500 for photocopier use.

Severe damp on some of the rooms, bed bugs, closets filled with the rubble, them not sending contractors to fix things, or sending people without giving us any warning at all.

There are so many more, these are just the ones that come to mind. Some of this is also the fault of Felix De Giles, the person who owned the property – in which I will do a separate post for.

[Editors note: if the house was rented and marketed to you on the basis it had 2 bathrooms, both bathrooms should be working. Your house should be in habitable condition before you move in. Its your landlords responsibilty to repair these things. If this isn’t adhered to, this is cause enough to exit your tenancy agreement]

Rent: £270

Deposit Returned?: Yes

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