Drivers and Norris

My experience with Drivers & Norris as a tenant was incredibly frustrating from start to finish. What should have been a straightforward matter of giving notice and leaving a rental property turned into an unnecessarily difficult and adversarial process. I gave notice of my intention to leave, and instead of dealing with the situation reasonably, Drivers & Norris took an extremely rigid approach to the tenancy despite myself and my housemates’ attempt to work with the landlord to find a suitable replacement. The most frustrating part was the complete lack of common sense applied to the situation. A replacement tenant was available, yet rather than finding a practical solution, the agency appeared more interested in rigidly sticking to its interpretation of the tenancy arrangements. Nothing was handled promptly, any email I sent it would take days to get a response which left me no choice but to constantly call the office. The handling of the property itself was equally frustrating. For example, we required our downstairs toilet to be fixed almost quarterly. Countless times I raised that there needed to be a more permanent fix for the toilet, otherwise the same issue would continue to occur. These concerns were never taken seriously by the agent. Overall, I found the experience unnecessarily stressful, inflexible and completely lacking in customer service. The impression I was left with was that once you become a tenant, your concerns are very much secondary to enforcing the agency’s position. If you’re considering renting through Drivers & Norris, my advice would be to document absolutely everything. Don’t assume that something obvious or reasonable will be treated that way. I would not rent through this agency again.