D & J Lettings and Property Management

The onboarding process is well set up and pretty hassle free. We didn't have a property managed by D&J so only had interactions with them at the start and end of tenancy. D&J contract out their check in and check out inventories to a company called Saffron Inventories and this is where we experienced difficulties. Although Jo Swinton/Saffron Industries doesn't directly work for D&J, she is listed on their website and seems to do all their inventories. She prodcues reports with overly inflated costs, including for things which are clearly wear and tear. We disputed a lot of our charges, were happy to pay for somethings, but not at the rate Jo calculated. When we went through the dispute process, any charges we disputed we either didn't have to pay or paid a reduced rate compared to what Jo calcualted. Her report also included a charge for a missing postbox key, even though we had no postbox. I'm not sure if she copy and pasted parts of the report or had saved over and used a version of a form which had previously been filled out. D&J also managed to send us £70 in error which was supposed to be sent to our former landlord. First we knew about it was when our former landlord had to contact us a couple of months later and request we send it to them. Not a big deal for us as we could just transfer the money to the landlord, and it wasn't us paying D&J for a service, but it seemed odd they'd make that mistake. Realistically housing is in short supply and you're not going to avoid a property due to D&J using Saffron inventories and sending money to odd places, but be prepared for the check out report, try not to take it personally, and dispute the charges...and maybe double check they have your details correct if youre expecting money from them.