fresh move Reviews 156

Reply from fresh move

Apr 9, 2017

Dear Iain

Thank you for your review. We really do appreciate any feedback as it helps us strengthen our service if issues occur. We use Trustpilot and actively ask landlords and tenants to leave feedback each week. We work with over 600 landlords so our service levels are extremely important to us.

We have taken over quite a few contracts from other agents over the past 10 years so I am not sure specifically which tenancy this is but I would welcome the opportunity to discuss the issues you have had in more depth to ascertain what has gone wrong and why in this case.

We pride ourselves on our unique service with 10 years in the industry and strive to continue to improve our practices and lead in terms of the technology we innovate with to protect our landlords and tenants.

We have engaged this year a new member of our team who has trained over 2200 letting agents and landlords in Wales, as it is now compulsory in Wales to be licenced or use a licenced letting agent and no doubt will follow suit in the UK. His experience and training skills will ensure that all our staff are accredited to the highest standards.

In general, it is very difficult at times when we inherit a property from another agent as we have to rely on the information provided by the previous agent or landlord. It is poor that no inventory was conducted by the previous agent and would have impacted any evidence against a tenant at the end of a tenancy. The DPS have released new guidelines that require 100% evidence which also includes frequent inspections to support the condition of the property when the tenant moves in, to them vacating the property to support any changes that have happened during the tenancy term. They would not accept an inventory that was taken 1-2 years into a tenancy. They would only consider what it was like before the tenant moved in and again any subsequent inspections.

The regular electronic inspections that fresh move produce are some of the most detailed in the industry as advised by reputable independent qualified surveyors that include over 30 key areas that we review on the property and we try to take as many pictures as possible so when we don’t know the condition of the property when a tenant moved in hopefully a landlord has an opportunity to view the pictures as well and make comments where necessary. If we do not find a tenant and move them in then we are reliant on data that we can acquire during the rest of the tenancy and between one inspection and another.

When we let properties we use video inventories in addition to a detailed check in report. The video is equivalent to 30 million photographs to cover our landlords as much as possible.

Smoking is not permitted in any of our contracts and sadly we are bound by law to give 24 hours notice of any inspections so if anyone is breaking tenancy guidelines by smoking they typically would not smoke while we were there. It is as I am sure you can appreciate very difficult to prove at times if a tenant is smoking in the property or prove that it is their smoking that has caused any damage when there isn’t a previous inventory. When we secure a new applicant when they fill in the referencing application they have to state if they smoke or not. If we take over a tenancy we would not have this information.

In terms of rent arrears if we take on a tenancy where the tenants have been in for some time, say years and the landlord/previous agent do not alert us to any history of rental issues we have to presume that the they are good payers. Sometimes landlords accept by prior arrangement that rent is paid 2-3 days late to coincide with payment dates. We can also experience issues in transfer when standing orders are cancelled and transferred. Fresh move pride ourselves on paying our landlords the same day the rent comes in. This is an in-house operation and is not outsourced. We understand that many agents pay landlords once a week.

We do not tolerate rent arrears and all of our managed contracts are given 6 months rent guarantee and legal expenses cover free of charge to ensure that our landlords are protected. Anyone who does not pay or is late in that period would be evicted and the costs covered by the insurance.

We would not give references to tenants who were consistently late with rental payments. If they were late once or twice in a long tenancy due to genuine reasons then we would consider this acceptable and would discuss that with the referencing agency.

Our online system called mypropertyfile helps landlords view their properties at any time such as rental statements, maintenance jobs, gas tests, inspections etc so that everything is transparent. You would have been given access to this system online. However, we are also free at any time should a landlord wish to discuss their tenancy.

We don’t want landlords to be unhappy with our staff or our services so please do contact me to discuss what has happened and allow us the opportunity to investigate this further.

Our offices that we own may not be in the town centre but our location in Walnut Road, Chelston allows our landlords to easily park directly outside for free and to drop keys in or pop in for a coffee and a chat at any time. We also do not have any of the high business rates that high street shops and agencies have to face which allows us to offer competitive rates and no hidden fees or costs. Unlike many other agents we have never and would never mark up any contractors bills or charge landlords or tenants for extras.

We are very sorry to learn that you have not been happy with our staff and welcome the opportunity for you to meet with us, the owners to explore your issues further. Our manager is away this week but I am in the office all week so please do give me a call.


Regards

Fiona Gardner
Managing Director

01803 504000

Reply from fresh move

Mar 27, 2017

Dear Mrs Jenna Cooper

We are very sorry to hear that you feel the service fresh move have provided has been unsatisfactory.

Each of your points have been addressed as follows:

fresh move worked to very tight timescales following the initial holding deposit received by you to moving you into the property and during this period we were promised by the landlord that the property would be thoroughly cleaned. During the period of cleaning there were still outstanding snagging issues for the developer to which we did advise you about that would affect the cleanliness of the handover of the property as some of the snagging issues would not be completed before you wanted to move into the property. This did result in additional workmen arriving onsite resulting in the cleanliness of the property being affected.

You did insist that you wanted to move in before a professional handover of the property could be provided with existing snagging issues outstanding.

Our initial video inventory and detailed check in report was communicated directly with the developers and to you which highlighted the original snagging issues so your point about fresh move not communicating with the developers is incorrect.

Subsequent 4 monthly detailed inspections have also highlighted any new issues to be addressed again communicated with the developers.

fresh move - including all of our staff in addition to the owners Fiona and James have worked extremely hard to address all of your concerns and we feel that it is unreasonable to advise that we have been lazy in responding to any of your queries. We have an extensive audit trail of conversations recorded on our property management system of every event you have raised and our response back to you and the developers. It is very common on issues like this for the developer to be quite unhelpful in addressing snagging issues. Once money has been transferred by the owners of the property sometimes outstanding issues are ignored. Some are better than others. Our audit trail of communication demonstrates that we have communicated all snagging issues under the building warranty all of which have been resolved in a reasonable timeframe.

In addition to the above very early after you have moved in you started to communicate directly with the developers preventing fresh move from effectively managing the issues to address when we clearly explained any maintenance / snagging issues needed to be communicated directly through fresh move and not with the developers or landlord directly.

fresh move via our mypropertyfile system easily automates reporting a maintenance issue for both tenants and landlords available online or via the mypropeatyfile app. We did on several occasions recommend that that if you report the issues directly to the developer fresh move have no visibility of the issue and we will not be able to act effectively on your behalf with the developer to see the issue through to a satisfactory outcome.

In terms of the fresh move tenant fees we believe these are extremely competitive and fair compared to other agent fees. At £150 per tenant which is fixed, includes Vat, 6 months rent guarantee / legal expenses cover for the landlord and are there are no additional fees required is excellent value for both tenants and landlords. Many fresh move tenants often complain about other agents charging at least twice this amount and a survey fresh move carried out across the majority of our tenants suggested that our fees were transparent and affordable.

You also advise other tenants to go private. Tenants that deal directly with landlords without using an agent are not always protected. However, tenants have that choice.

It is very unfortunate that your response to fresh move in our opinion is unjustified. We always welcome negative feedback so we can improve upon the service we provide and constructively work towards an effective resolution.

Again, we are very sorry that you have not experienced what you believe to be of a lesser standard. However, we have done the best we can with all situations considered to maximise the comfort of your tenancy and your home and to resolve any issues as speedily as possible given the parameters we have had to work to.

Kind regards

The fresh move team