If you're a tenant, ensure that any property you move into is cleaned to a professional standard. The property I moved into was not cleaned professionally despite Belvoir claiming otherwise. I had to pay for a professional cleaning company to clean the property when I moved in, and was not reimbursed (not even partially). This is not a case of me being pedantic, the property was genuinely filthy when I moved in (coupled with living during a pandemic).
What's ironic is that at the end of my tenancy, despite the fact I had contracted a cleaning company to clean the property to start to finish, I was told from Belvoir that parts of the property were not cleaned professionally and they went ahead and deducted a chunk off my holding deposit to have it cleaned themselves.
Belvoir have also tried to circumvent any criticism by mentioning they will take legal action which feels like intimidation.
There have been other issues along the way beyond the scope of a short review. I will be giving them 2 stars out of 5, with one star being issued for the strong first impression they made. It's a shame it wore off.
Reply from agent
Dear Amir,
We would like to firstly reply to your allegations which you make, also we put you on notice that due to defamatory comments made to the business, brand and personal we shall be passing your details to our legal team to investigate and no doubt they will be in touch.
In reference to the keys it is noted that the set given out to you there was a key missing so when you did call the office member of our team brought the right set to you within few minutes of you reporting this to us.
I would now like to make you aware of the background and the way the team here assisted you with your move in, we put a lot of work into ensuring you passed references when an undeclared CCJ of over £5000 appeared on your credit report due a claim your previous landlord filed against you for failing to pay rent and disposing of the landlords furniture and not replacing it.
In addition when you had moved into the property you requested that the landlord supply you with a large desk to allow you to work from home which the landlord duly complied with on the basis that you made a small contribution towards which demonstrates the fact the landlord and ourselves went over and beyond scope of duties given that we ensure customer service is focal part of our business and service.
With reference to the cleaning of the property we can confirm that this was cleaned to a high standard in fact twice once before the move in, including the day before to which we have evidence in the form of invoices from the contractor and it was duly noted on the inventory completed by the inventory clerk who is independent. There were a number of issues reported by you and you then demanded these to be replaced which were not within our remit to comply within given the fact that the property is protected and a listed building.
We did in fact instruct a professional tradesman to attend to the issues there is only a limited amount of work that can be allowed to be undertaken. The latest issues you had consisted of a demand to replace the bed frame due to a screw that scratched the leg of his friend. Our offer to send out a contractor to assess the problem was met with a further complaint that the bed was creaking and it was your conclusion that the bed therefore needed to be replaced and not just fixed. We consider the defamatory comments made and your personal online attack of “Jonathan” to be unwarranted and also slander again we have passed these over to legal team for further action against you, As Jonathan is invaluable member of the Belvoir team who is respectable and polite and he was merely following procedure. As you can appreciate we have also a duty of care to our landlord and cannot fully justify replacing items until we have fully investigated each issue / problem raised and in the short time you have been a resident we have dealt with your numerous complaints professional and your threats also where you have previously mentioned if we don’t get some items resolved you will be leaving “bad review”.
We are fully regulated agent and have a complaints procedure in place and can we suggest you kindly make recourse via the correct channels to deal with your concerns raised.
Amir,
You have resorted to blackmail in an attempt to obtain another property with us even after expressing your dissatisfaction previously. As stated during a telephone conversation on the 23rd November 2021 you advised that if we were to enter into a second tenancy with yourself, you would return the favour by writing a 'glowing 5 star review'. You also apologised profusely and sincerely for your poor conduct and attitude towards members of our office however as we decided against offering you a second tenancy you have attempted to circumvent the situation and again rewrite a review which you originally left 7 months ago.
We are happy with our decision not to accept you as a tenant for a second time as your review has clearly demonstrated you lack professionalism...