The room was advertised as 'available now' on sparerooms which granted was the landlady's fault. When talking to this company, I had to fill in a form to determine if I was suitable. In that form, the move in date was for July. They asked for all my identification documents before I even saw the room to make sure I was suitable...I said ok. They sent a virtual room viewing (of a different room than the one to be shown later) and then said to come see the room in person. I asked for a live video tour instead due to the pandemic so that I can ask further questions. They said no. Went to see the room and put the deposit down. Then told after it wasn't available till the month after. Even with the landlords mistake, the form filled in at the beginning clearly had my requirements for a move in July, not August.
These people are a waste of time and if it was this hard to get a place, you just know they'd screw your deposit when it was time to leave.
Reply from agent
Hello. We did send you a virtual viewing of the property as due to the pandemic we were trying to narrow down the amount of appointments we were carrying out at the property (as it is a shared house). The video viewing does give you a basic idea of what the accommodation is like, however, part of our due diligence is that we do ask the applicant to physically view the property once referencing is complete before they sign a legally binding tenancy agreement. The reason we do this is so that we can ensure that you are 100% happy with the accommodation where you will be living before they sign the legally binding tenancy agreement. The property was always advertised with the correct availability date on all of the marketing material/portal, i am sorry if you feel it was not clear.Although you pulled out of the application, we did in fact return your full holding deposit. I hope that you have found suitable accommodation and wish you luck for the future.