Tag: illegal

CPS

It’s habitable! So habitable that we’re taking it off the market, so no one new can rent it!

Where do I begin?

Firstly, we were promised that the bathroom would be redone but didn’t get this put in the contract meaning that we couldn’t force them to do it despite the promise.

Once moved into the property there were several issues such as severe mould and damp, a broken gate onto the street, a broken window that faced onto the street downstairs and if a burglar saw it could easily break in, cupboards unclean, broken dishwasher, cupboard under the sink disgustingly mouldy and damp, carpet torn, stuff left from painters and a barely functioning front door. There were also damp issues across the entire house.

So what did cps do?

After emailing and calling at least once a week and going in, the window and front door were fixed… in January (only 5 months after we moved in…). Why did they fix it? Because we called the council and had them come round and they threatened to take away the HMO license. Only reason CPS/the landlord did anything about that.

I will give credit that our dishwasher was fixed within a month which for CPS is pretty decent.

With regards to the mouldy and damp kitchen – the landlords excuse was that he was redoing that following summer. That is a bullshit excuse for the condition.

So we had gotten the council round and they sent a report to CPS/landlord. And so they organised to do works which we were told would be minimal and not disruptive, and would also only take a couple of days.

They started the works about 6 weeks ago… it’s still going on. They tore off the outside render, made holes in our house, completely tore up our back garden and filled it with builders crap. Our neighbours actually had to complain because the builders knocked bricks down their fireplace. Due to the holes in the property, we got rats and had to have pest control. This is all happening during lockdown.

CPS have been unhelpful in communication and take about a week to reply. We have asked for compensation especially as one of us is still living in the property during lockdown and having to live in this shithole. CPS simply stated that the property was habitable because there was someone living there – this is not the definition of a property being habitable. We are worried we won’t get our deposit back because of the damage that the damp had done. The builders have stated that they would never have called the work they are doing minimal and that the damp was diabolical. Which considering half my house has asthma and other lung issues, is extremely dangerous.

The property was actually taken off the market after one of their employees came round for a mid tenancy inspection because of the actual house itself. If you have to take a house off the market, surely there is a bigger issue here?

We pay £330 for the house, if I were to price it, I wouldn’t pay more than £280 and during the works, the rent should have been halved. Because of the works we have no garden during lockdown and can’t even open a window in the hot weather because of the dust.

I know CPS is a hit and a miss. But whatever you do, DO NOT GET A PROPERTY THAT IS MANAGED BY CPS AND NOT THE LANDLORD!!!

Rent: £330

Deposit Returned?: Still living at the hole in question

CPS

CPS: Oops! We forgot to tell the previous tenant, that we’re renting to someone new!

Move-in day:

  • One tenant was still living there as CPS ‘hadn’t had time to check the property and go over the inventory with them’
  • Got that sorted, then they gave us all the keys… or so we thought. No front door keys were given, meaning all the previous tenants still had theirs. Had to get the locks changed and give in new keys to CPS (which they claim we never gave them).

House Viewings:

  • All viewings of our house were given less than 24hrs notice, and one was literally 30mins before they turned up at our house, and started banging on windows to get us to let them in. [Editor’s Note: If someone does this in the future call the police and report them for harassment.]

House condition:

  • A leaking tap, all year even though we emailed repeatedly about it
  • Radiator not working & leaking all year (again, having phoned & emailed about it regularly)
  • Bathroom door didn’t close (was by the kitchen) and though we literally emailed them 20 times about this, servicemen just came around, stated ‘you need a new door’ and left, without any resolution.

2/10 do not recommend to a friend.

Rent: £315

Deposit Returned?: Still living at the hole in question

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

Cardiff Student Letting

Felix De Giles is a crook.

Felix De Giles is a property owner in Cardiff. He at the time of us dealing with him he rented to Pinnacle Lettings Agency but when we left I think he has transferred some, or possibly all, to Cardiff Student Lettings.

I have written another post about Pinnacle Lettings Agency, Felix was nothing to do with our time in the tenancy, supposedly, he was not managing the tenancy, just the owner – read the below with this in mind.

This man knows absolutely nothing about being a landlord. He would frequently break both the law and general practice, some examples;

  1. He changed the locks without informing us or the lettings agency. the contractors had a key to the our house and we nor the lettings agency knew about.
  2. He would send contractors round to do things that, given a long list of rather emergency things to be done, were not important. These things would not be communicated to us, people would just show up. One of these was putting a large box around our electric meter at 8am – they let themselves in and woke a housemate up.
  3. He uses the cheapest builders that could not be any more cowboy if they rode in on horses firing guns in the air. There was plaster everywhere, paint everywhere, once they left our front door without a lock for a few hours?
  4. When we ultimately complained by putting posters everywhere in the house when people came to view the house, we got a call from him directly giving us advice on how to solve our problems. This advice included ‘never shut your heating off’ (we were on a pay meter) and for him to trying and explain how all the faults in the house were in fact our fault.

There is plenty more information about this if people are dealing with him, or want more knowledge.

I think when we left the council was investigating.

Rent: £270

Deposit Returned?: Yes