I took out a no deposit scheme with Flatfair via my property management company and I deeply regret it. I was sold on the concept of ease and straightforwardness for both landlord and tenant. If it glitters too much it's definitely NOT gold.
Their service seems to work - until you actually do end up with rent arrears and damage left in your property. Despite the tenant admitting to the damage and rent arrears via the platform, Flatfair refuse to payout according to their own policy. Apparently I have to escalate the issue via alternative channels first. Flatfair - specifically Dean - having first acknowledged the situation and the mistake made on their part, have resorted to ignoring my emails completely. It has been a 6 MONTH ordeal going back and forth with them since the tenancy and agreement ended.
My next step besides a formal complaint to the Property Ombudsman is to take them to court.
A service that doesn't work when things go wrong simply doesn't work. They're no better than any other bad insurance company. AVOID!
Reply from agent
Dear Ugorji,
I’d like to apologise for the delay in resolving your end of tenancy case, we appreciate that this could have been resolved more efficiently
Our platform provides the ability for tenants and landlords to negotiate end of tenancy charges directly so all parties can agree on the final amount owed.
In this case the negotiation was successful with agreement between you and the tenants for total charges of £5,250 (with £3,500 of this being rent arrears).
Having become aware that you also had rent and legal protection, we made enquiries to find out how much of the arrears your insurer had already covered and as this amount exceeded the agreed owed rent arrears on the case, you were informed that the case would progress with flatfair only for the remaining damages charge.
We are aware that in fact you submitted the charges incorrectly (not including the full amount owed by the tenants, but instead submitting the amount unpaid by your insurer) and you also accepted a reduced figure through negotiation with the tenant.
We also note that you submitted the charges outside the 28 day deadline from when the tenancy ended.
When an insurer is involved, we treat the case the same way as it would work if a deposit was involved (in terms of the invoice amount for the tenant and therefore the amount that we’ll attempt to collect on your behalf). If a deposit was involved, this would be retained and any arrears beyond this would be picked up by the insurer.
We have generously opted to give you the best possible outcome from the scenario above.
We have opted to ignore the late submission of the charges and also ignore the submission error, meaning we will take collection responsibility for and send you a landlord offer for debt purchase of 5 week’s worth of rent (£2019.25) replicating the outcome if you had held a 5 week deposit.
You should receive this offer by the early part of next week and if signed promptly, you should receive the amount quoted by the end of the week.
If you have any further questions, please reach out to us via endoftenancy@flatfair.co.uk
Best wishes,
Damola
Head of Customer Operations