At the viewing, we recall being told that bills were included. We have no written evidence of this and acknowledge that the contract we signed does not state that bills are included. We were disappointed by our experience and, following our concerns, by the tone of the emails that followed, which we found rude and sarcastic. Based on our experience, we would not use this company again. We recommend that anyone deciding to use this company makes sure that anything discussed at a viewing, particularly regarding bills or other costs, is confirmed in writing before signing.
Reply from Belvoir - Newcastle under Lyme: Dear Niamh, thank you for your review and we are sorry that you feel the need to leave us 1 star based on the information you have stated. As you are aware we have discussed this matter with you and gathered some further information. Your review is given because you recall being advised at a viewing that bills would be included at the property you have rented. Upon investigation of this for you, we can see that the advertisement for the property on Rightmove and other sites does not state that bills are included. In addition to this, upon application you were provided with what is called the pre tenancy information or draft tenancy which also does not state that bills were included. All tenants are given time to review this information before submitting an application. After you had had some time you submitted your application and did not raise any queries in relation to the bills not being included. Whilst reference checks took place you raised no questions as to why bills were not included. Following reference checks the official tenancy was sent to you for signing and again you are given chance to read this and raise any questions before signing. You did not raise any questions about bills, you read the tenancy and you signed it. Following moving into the property you then raised with us that bills should have been included. We have then provided you with a timeline of all of the above explaining that at no point was the property ever advertised with bills included and you have never questioned it. We can not prove or disprove that a viewings rep mentioned that bills would be included and you have no evidence to to support that you were told they would be. You may have got mixed up with a different property as many landlord do in fact include bills.
So specifically referring to your final point where you say you recommend that anyone using this company should obtain things in writing, we would certainly agree with you, we would strongly advise that a tenant raises any points they wish to be answered prior to signing a contract, we would highly recommend that anything agreed between the tenant and/or agent and/or landlord is put in writing and our company would always without failure 100% do so. Unfortunately, you did not raise any questions verbally nor in writing regarding the bills and therefore we had no response to put in writing to you.
As you will read from our hundreds of positive reviews, our company is highly regarded as one of the best letting agents around, in fact we have won many awards for being the best. It is a shame that some members of the public don't give any care or consideration to how a negative review can affect years of work which has gone into building such a reputation. If we deserved a negative review we would apologise to the customer and put right what was wrong, but as you can see, this particular customer decided to try and ruin our reputation based on something they failed to do themselves.
Craig Johnson
