30th May 2024 (18 days ago)
I rented a property through this agency for 6 years and overall I am disappointed by they way the tenancy has been managed throughout.
I would like to highlight that I lived in the property with my partner and 3 young children.
Although the property appeared to be clean and well maintained when we first moved in, it was not long before issues started to occur.
Initially Sandra used to send professional contractors for the repairs, but this soon stopped when the landlady decided to send her own contractor, who was a friendly guy, but appeared to carry out temporary repairs only as it was not long before the same issues reoccurred.
Just to give a few examples, the was a leaking from the upstairs bathroom every time we took a shower and water was dropping onto the kitchen floor via the ceiling neon light.
This issue has never been permanently resolved throughout the six years we lived in the property and we resorted to place a bucket in the kitchen to collect the water leaking from the shower.
We also experienced 2 flooding due to a burst pipe in the downstairs toilet that we could not stop as the property had no 'water stop tap' and this resulted in several of our personal belongings to be damaged (e.g. a PC desktop and a sofa).
Furthermore, on a rainy night, water started to overflow from the upstairs toilet and then travelling to the bedrooms and down the stairs reaching the living room.
Following the above the ceiling lights in the living room stopped working as they were full of water and one of the bulb disintegrated in my face when I remove the shed.
And the most ridiculous thing is that when I spoke to the landlady husband, who was very rude and patronizing, he did not see anything wrong with the light issue.
Following the above incident, to be fair Sandra visited the property and then tried to make the landlady to carry out proper repairs and to change all carpets as they were soaked in toilet water.
However, the carpet were never changed and I had to pay out of my own pocket to have them professionally cleaned.
The above are just a sample of the multiple issues that we experienced during our stay.
I understand it is the landlord that decide about repairs, but I believe it is also the managing agent's responsibility to ensure the property is maintained up to UK living standards and in my view Saxton Mee has failed to do so.
The property was not even suitable for animals at least over the last year.
Throughout the tenancy we have been very patient and accommodating to the landlord, tolerating delays in repairs and avoiding to escalate issues that caused us huge inconvenience.
To be honest, following the latest flooding, the house was not in a livable conditions and we should have been moved out in a temporary accommodation allowing the landlord to rectify all the issues in the property.
However, we again exercised patience and gave the landlord a chance to rectify the issues and I find it really insulting that after moving out the landlord is trying to withheld the deposit.
I will update the review when the deposit issue is resolved.... Read more