Belvoir Leamington may be good for general sales and tenancies (as their other reviews seem to imply) but they provide poor service to student tenants. If you are a prospective student tenant, PLEASE take my advice and do not put yourself through the stress of letting with this agency.
They never followed up emails in a timely manner when attempting to report issues, and charged an excessive amount in 'cleaning fees' despite the property being returned to them in a spotless condition. Other students with other letting agencies retrieved their whole deposits back without cleaning their property as rigorously. This stung particularly considering the state they left the property upon moving in - excrement in the toilet etc. Further - they were unhelpful and rude in the manner they dealt with this, charging the group an amount for cleaning fees without providing a breakdown or specifying why. We got the impression that they just wanted to get as much money out of us as possible, despite knowing that they were dealing with students. Would you charge an excessive fee if a property had been returned to you in a better state to how you received it? You pride yourselves on being fantastic to student tenants Belvoir Leamington - why make this claim and not back it up with real evidence?
And before a member of the team tries to contact me to take this comment down, I won't, and please don't try. Doesn't it say a lot that they actually ask people to remove negative comments?
EDIT - RESPONSE TO REPLY: As I have no personal qualms with anyone at Belvoir and direct my comments to the agency as a whole, I'd appreciate it if you didn't post my personal details online. I am writing this review on behalf of a group of friends who rented with you this year who have had a very negative experience, so my comments therefore serve as a review of your conduct as opposed to a review of my experience. Essentially, the facts still stand regardless of who the property was rented by.
Secondly, I appreciate the sentiment, but your words do not mirror your actions. It is very well stating this online for others to see following a negative review, but I advise practicing this with your tenants in order to tackle the issue at base. I wish I could believe you regarding your comments with the cleaners, but unfortunately – and my own experience backs this up – I think it’s necessary to bring into question either the ‘reputable’ nature of your cleaners (how good they actually are at the literal cleaning), or whether you use cleaners at all in your student properties.
I will not be calling, as I’ll leave further discussion to the tenants of the property. I simply wanted to post a review, not conduct an exchange.
Reply from agent
Hi Elenya,
Thank you for taking the time to write your review. I am disappointed to read some of the comments that you have made. I can assure you that the majority of our team were students at some stage prior to joining us here at Belvoir, including our son Conor (Nottingham Trent), so we know what processes and stresses you have to go through. However, I am perplexed to read that we have charged you for ‘excessive cleaning’. You were a tenant of ours in two separate properties from 2015 to 2017, both of which you received your full deposit back with no deductions for cleaning, as we agree that you left the property immaculate.
We are aware that sadly there are many agents out there who do try and ‘fleece’ students and also do not treat them in the manner in which they should be treated, i.e: with the utmost respect as every other tenant. We have been fortunate enough to have been providing rentals to students for over 19 years and we currently provide accommodation to over 500 students in our local area, so please be 100% assured that we do care for our students. We do not take commission from any of our contractors and the cleaners that we use are very competitive in price and reputable.
We would be happy to discuss this matter with you, should you wish to contact us directly. Our contact number is 01926 422251.
Regards,
John Warburton
Director & Owner
Dear Elyna
I have read your review on Google this morning and I/we are obviously confused as my husband and son ( ex-student only 4 years ago) has already said as to why you have decided to add this now after having left twelve months ago, and to say we deducted costs from you when we did not?
You began your tenancies with us in 2015 and on no occasion throughout these three years nor for one year after end of your tenancy have you ever contacted us at all regarding any complaint towards us or our Student team here at Belvoir, hence why we are perplexed.
You have now changed your first review to state you are now speaking on behalf of all other Belvoir students and not yourself? A stated to the latest one star left very quickly after yours, we do not have any complaints or disputes that we have been made aware of. As you are aware, we have a complaints procedure and none of you have ever contacted us in regard to any issues or complaint during your three years as a tenant of ours, had you done so, you could have followed our correct procedure resulting in a resolution being found.
I can assure you that we only ever ask people to remove reviews if they have added a review when they have never been a tenant of ours and we have never dealt with them. I am sure you can imagine how you would feel if someone went onto your Facebook and said cruel comments about you and you had never met them, didn’t know who they were nor had any dealings with them, but they had just decided to ‘make things up’ to make you look bad. You have been a tenant of ours so this is not what I am accusing you of doing.
Unfortunately there have been several local agents, not just us who have had students and private let tenants do such a thing on their google reviews.
As you have been a tenant of ours, we would never ask you to remove your review, so please don’t confuse this request with genuine reviews we have received.
I am saddened that you didn’t contact me directly so I could have looked into your issues with us and perhaps we could have rectified whatever it was you were upset about.
Elyna, you say you do not want to ‘exchange’ any discussion with us but we are a family-owned and family-run business, we are not a corporate owned or corporate-run agency, we own this privately, so we take every comment very personally, so this is not something we just ignore when we receive a negative review.
If it has made you feel better and get things ‘off your chest’ then that is a good thing and we wish you the best for your future.
Kind Regards
Sue Warburton & the Belvoir team
Owner
