Tag: wales

Horizon

The only thing over the Horizon is an NDA!

We luckily didn’t end up living in a horizons house because of all the red flags we had with the tenancy agreement, but still thought it was worth giving a review. To start with the agreement was FULL of spelling mistakes, they wanted us to sign a non-disclosure agreement when seems extremely problematic, they mentioned specifically that they refuse to cover certain damages like rats and fence breaking and telling us our initial deposit was part of the rent and then not refunding us when we didn’t sign the agreement.

[If your landlord or agency trying to get you to sign a non-disclosure agreement, I’d STRONGLY recommend reaching out to ACORN Cardiff for support!]


They were also really condescending to us especially once we told them it was our first time house hunting, and responded to our questions really indirectly. When our guarantors checked over the agreement they managed to point out problems with almost every point and when we pointed out some of these issues to horizon they told us it was straightforward and transparent and they weren’t going to change it and just generally seemed dodgy and rude x

CPS

CPS pulling a good olde electric switcharoo


Firstly we agreed to pay half rent for July and they gave us the electricity bill and which was about £400. Then they changed our energy supplier on the 2nd August the day after we moved in to a different one which prevented us from making a deal with the original energy supplier which was the cheapest. When trying to get hold of them about it they’re avoiding it.

[Your landlord or agency should not be switching suppliers if you are the one paying the bill. However they pay the bills for you, they are within the right to choose the supplier. You can find more info on this here.]

Rent: 335

Deposit Returned?: Still living in the hole in question

Uncategorized

Signing up with 👑 Kingstons? You’ll be their peasant

Genuinely the worst company I have ever had to deal with. When it came to move-in day, I was unable to get into my room as no-body in the office had a key for my locked bedroom. I had to wait 3 hours with my Dad in the car outside until the landlord could arrange for a handyman to come and change the lock on the door and let me in. My Dad then had to dive back to my hometown 3 hours delayed- no apology from the office about the wait or the fact they had lost the key to the bedroom.

When the door was finally opened it was clear they had not made any of the changes they had agreed to in the contract signing. It had been agreed that the single bed in my room would be upgraded to a 3/4 bed and a desk and chair would be provided for my housemate. They had been warned several times of when we would be moving in. Throughout the year we had several issues that were either not solved or took months for them to get round to. This included my housemates’ desk collapsing in her hands and an incredibly moldy fridge which was not hygienic enough to keep food it when we arrived. My bedroom was very small and had no insulation so got very moldy after a few months of living there, it also gave me a bad chest from sleeping in the room overnight. After complaining to Kingstons someone from the landlords’ office came to clean it which was great until she happily told me that if the mold returned she would be charging me and that I needed to keep my window open. It was February and I could see my breath in my room as it was.

When moving out of the house in June we cleaned it thoroughly but had to fight for 2 months to get our deposit back as they would not accept the fact that we had closed our water account when returning home during the pandemic. When finally receiving the list of ‘damages’ we were shocked to be charged a whopping £158 each (there are 4 of us) including £100 for cleaning, £28 for each de-weeding the garden and £46 each for an inch stain on the worktop. When we queried the damages we felt completely unjust, including the stain, some of the charges were dropped but we were told that the landlord was going to have to replace the whole unit. I do not doubt in my mind this will not be replaced. We have ended the year losing £120 of our £350 deposit each for a house we really looked after. A disappointing and difficult company to deal with needless to say we did not sign with them for the third year.


Rent: £305

Deposit Returned: Partially

John Winter

Shoutout to Ollie, top lad!

I have lived in a John Winter house for 2 years now and have had a really good experience. I would recommend them so highly. They are kind, friendly and super helpful. The two properties I’ve stayed in are well kept, clean and cosy homes.

Slightly disappointed with the handling of coronavirus, our house is completely empty and we’ve not had much communication regarding money issues that people may or may not have but that’s a small issue. I am thankful John Winter’s team, especially Ollie the maintenance manager who was always there if we needed him!

Rent: £370

Deposit Returned?: Didn’t have one

CPS

I don’t need CPS, I need CPR after this experience

CPS scammed me and my friends, it was our first time living outside of uni halls and they used that to their advantage.

As soon as we moved in there was a leaky gutter and I reported it several times over the following months. Water began leaking through my window and created mould all over the walls, which grew on my bedding and all my belongings. I had to stay with a friend as I have bad lungs and the room was deemed a health hazard by an independent mould inspector that my parents paid to get done as CPS continued to ignore the issue. Photos attached.

  • cps homes cardiff wales uk mould mold rotten landlord land lord student student housing rent deposit illegal CPS tenant rent renters
  • cps homes cardiff wales uk mould mold rotten landlord land lord student student housing rent deposit illegal CPS tenant rent renters
  • cps homes cardiff wales uk mould mold rotten landlord land lord student student housing rent deposit illegal CPS tenant rent renters

Finally, after 5-6 months they decided to repair the gutter and fix the mould (that was my fault for not alerting them soon enough?!) The work was supposed to take no more than a couple of days, but it turned into a couple of weeks and then a month for the room to be habitable again. In this time I had to remove all my belongings from the room, my bed frame was taken apart and the mattress up against the wall as they moved a CEMENT MIXER in and had several workmen in the room daily. There was absolutely no way I could function or sleep in a room without a bed or privacy, and so I continued to stay at my friends house. They offered me no compensation for this time, they did not provide me with alternative accommodation and they harassed me constantly to pay rent (the only reason they started the work was because I stopped paying rent until they fixed the room). It was a recurring issue with previous tenants, one of the workmen told me that years of mould had been covered up with paint year after year.

  • cps homes cardiff wales uk mould mold rotten landlord land lord student student housing rent deposit illegal CPS tenant rent renters
  • cps homes cardiff wales uk mould mold rotten landlord land lord student student housing rent deposit illegal CPS tenant rent renters

But CPS still pointed the finger at me and caused me incredible stress during my studies, I had to seek mental health support and I was physically unwell too from the damp/mould. Eventually, the room was fixed but the relationship with my flatmates was gone and I had been bullied by CPS to pay rent for a room that I couldn’t live in for months. I had been homeless for a couple of months at this point. I found someone else to fill the room and had to pay additional contract change fees (£150 to cross out my name and add a different one! Scam!) [As of September 2019 this is illegal!]

They gave me my full deposit back. Not sure how much was taken from the remaining housemates / my replacement but I was just so glad to be rid of them. I ended up paying CPS over a grand for the time I was effectively homeless including contract changing fees. It really ruined my second year of University and I would really ask anyone thinking of signing with them to reconsider. The house will turn to shit in weeks of moving in. They don’t fix anything. There weren’t even beds/mattresses for the first week of renting the property at FULL RENT. It was so dirty on the first day we moved in. They’re rude and aggressive and called me a liar despite all the photos that proved I wasn’t making up there was a damp problem (even more sinister when you consider how many times they painted up that same mouldy bedroom). They manipulate their reviews by sponsoring sports teams and getting team players to give false 5* reviews posing as tenants to muddy the clearly very negative reviews from honest tenants. Avoid CPS at all costs.

Rent: 275

Deposit returned?: Yes

Cardiff Student Letting

Wonder if they put black mould and slugs on the inventory…

Rented a house with Cardiff Student Lettings in 2nd year and 3rd year – we couldn’t be bothered moving. Overall we were pretty happy with the agency. They responded to all our issues within a few days, apart from a broken blind which just stayed broken but we lived with that. They always gave us plenty of notice before viewings

(Something I really miss now being with CPS who gave a 10-minute warning on a Saturday at 10 am!- but that’s another story.)

The house itself wasn’t the best and I was constantly ill due to cracks in the walls and black mould. We had an incessant slug problem which when I completely lost it one morning over, they came and put some polyfiller down which helped a bit… They fixed everything very cheaply if they could do it themselves they would, so a lot of stuff was very haphazard. It was quite a cheap house (£285 pcm and then 300 ) for a 4 bedroom so overall we thought it was decent. We got all of our deposit back minus £50 in total but that’s ok because we did cause a bit of accidental damage.


Overall would recommend as the team were always friendly and helpful.

[Unfortunately, this reviewer doesn’t know the name of their landlord. Whoever they are should be ashamed, as mould can have serious health effects and landlords should never let this happen.]

Rent: £300

Deposit Returned?: Partially

Uncategorized

Cheeky feature in Landlord Zone

uni rate your landlord cardiff wales letting home the tab news newspaper

Landlord Zone may be throwing some shade in our direction but we’re flourishing anyway. 🌿

In their cheeky little article, they mention other failed rating websites and wonder if we will get any reviews. We’re not sure they’ve really been on our site since we’ve had a bunch of fantastic submissions! While we’re not usually ones to read pro-landlord newspapers this certainly gave us a laugh!