Simarc Property Management Reviews 194

Absolute scumbags of a company.

Simply out to screw leaseholders out of as much cash as possible for trivial matters.

Simarc, your time will come when your sharp practices are outlawed and i will be first in line to sue you, just like the banks and their PPI scandals,

I can honestly say that we had a very positive experience with SIMARC when purchasing the Freehold to our home. The cost was very fair & far lower than expected..a very pleasant surprise! Also the information provided to process documents meant no Solicitor was necessary...even more money saved!
Thank You Simarc

All the reviews about this company are true. They should not be allowed to trade. They charge you inflated amounts for what would be low cost / no cost normally.
I am considering selling my flat to get away from this company.

Donot buy any property managed by this company I had to sell my property because of fees after fees they charged me to have a tenant in the property I had to sell during pandemic & make a family homeless due to these money grabbing people . They charge £400 a year to have a tenant in the property & that’s just the beginning of all the fees

Simarc manages a property of mine which is let out. I have just had to pay £306 for notice of underletting. Simarc state on their website:

"Providing a professional, reputable and socially responsible service to both Leaseholders and Freeholders"

Yet Simarc would give me no explanation of this bill, my assumption is that it is for nothing apart from paperwork. I have no issue with a fair bill - recent legal cases suggest that fair for this type of work is about £50.

The companies site also refers to a "public pledge" which Simarc has signed. This is quite blatantly doing as little as possible but appearing to care - the end game being to avoid legislation.

I do hope that in time the government cracks down on businesses like this. As a leaseholder, it's sad to have to give money to such a company that quite clearly holds its customers in contempt whilst making up crazy sums for random charges.

Excellent and prompt response from Sharon Ward to our enquiry.
Friendly and helpful which is appreciated.

This company are a total joke. Our solicitors have pointed out to them that they cannot legally add admin fees when collecting ground rent under the lease terms and have quoted the relevant case law at them, but they don't reply and just ignore the law. They should be prosecuted for fraud.

It's all been said in the other reviews. I am not a complaining type BUT.....
Simarc are great communicators and extremely efficient when it comes to collecting.
When you need something from them then they are the complete opposite.
Why is there no body to deal with people like this. I can't wait until the purchase of our freehold has gone through.

Very poor practices

They deliberately date their invoices and reminders to cause interest payments to accrue. They have a dodgy relationship with their insurance brokers. Their staff are impolite and pushy. Sadly, there is no choice but to deal with them! Avoid, if you can...

Very poor service. They recently took over invoicing me for ground rent. They have offered to sell me the freehold, but only if I pay them a £120 valuation fee first, even though they do not actually own the freehold. They also charge me for four houses that have nothing to do with me. When I questioned this I was told "That's just how it is with ground rent". I am expected to go to the other properties and act as their collection agent for free.

I pay ground rent to this company, when I bought my property I wasn’t even aware they would be acting as a managing agent for the freeholder. We’ve had to pay over £600 to get permission to alter our drive although the lease said we could keep the drive how we wanted, once this was highlighted to them they blackmailed us and said if we didn’t pay the fee they’d make it difficult if we tried sell our home. Avoid leasehold properties at all costs.

I believe Simarc were willfully negligent in sending communications to an address they knew was incorrect.

I bought a property where Simarc is the property management company for the Freeholder. I moved into the new property but Simarc sent ground rent bills (the concept of ground rent is abhorrent anyway) to my previous property despite them being notified that I was moving into my new property.

They argued that they had not received any notification from my solicitors that the property I had bought was my new address. They did not call or email myself or contact my solicitors to inform of non-payment and ended up contacting my bank asking for payment of the ground rent along with hundreds of pounds of late fees.

I opened up a complaint with Simarc and asked that they not take payment from my bank without us coming to an agreement, to which they agreed. After a few weeks of back and forth, they went to my bank again (without my permission) and took payment from them. The bank subsequently added these payments onto my mortgage and as a result, I also had to pay extra interest.

I asked for at least an apology and recompense for the added interest I had to pay that their actions had caused me but they started to ignore my communications.

I believe they offer poor, untrustworthy customer service and take advantage of situations to earn more profit at the customer's expense through willful negligence.

I recommend avoiding at all costs - looking at the other reviews, it's clear I'm not the only individual who has run afoul of their practices.

Actually, they would get -0* - By Joe, What a blood sucking company, they want £ 132.00 to collect £ 150.00 which was just 14 days late! I did realize how dodgy this company was until I accessed Trustpilot reviews!

Would they send their terms and conditions for them to allow to do this? I will refer them to The Trading Standards.

absolute shambles of a company there is no point in these cowboys having a phone number as they just fob you off and tell you to email when I phoned up and questioned an email I was told they would not read out an email and I should search my junk folder never a manager available just a very unhelpful employee who unless you wish to pay money is simply not interested they fine new owners for not paying ground rent from before they bought the property absolute criminals I really hope the authorities close these rogues down the most unhelpful infuriating company I've had to deal with in my 50 years on this planet

I did not get any letters about my ground rent and they then sent a letter out requesting 4 years with an added on 210 pounds collection. I called them, they said it was sent to my email address so it must have went into the spam folder. I explained this but was told it was getting sent now to a debt collection company. I paid it all in full but this is a terrible company requested break down of the collection costs but was told had to do this by email. The woman on the phone was very unhelpful and had no customer service or empathy.
Is there not something that can be done about this company. Collection fee for what? apparently sending emails that I did not see at all. £70 pound for each email. Am in the wrong job need to leave nursing get a work at Simarc and £70 pound per email..

Unfortunately, all the other reviews on this company are entirely correct.

This company literally make money from old rope!!! The charges for relatively simple information is nothing short of criminal. The legal loopholes these people are allowed to exploit should be highlighted and stopped!.
If you do have a choice when buying a property and this company hold the leasehold my advise and opinion is simple.....move on and carry on looking buy elsewhere! I actually thought piracy had been confined to the past in Britain wow!

** Poor service, fraudulent sales practices, withholding personal data**
Absolutely terrible experience. All I wanted was a copy of my receipt for the last 3 years...
Told me I’d have to buy a Management Information pack for £240 and it would take 10 working days. Asked what it included and guess what, it doesn’t include the last 3 years worth of receipts. Trying to sell me something that I don’t need or helps me... I explained the sale of my property is being help up due to not having this and I was simply told it’s not something they can provide. Then went back to trying to sell me the management information pack again...
Asked to speak to a manager, no manager
Asked for email address for CEO, no email address, only a centralised mailbox and that’s where complaints go...
Literally no help at all, it’s a shame there isn’t a no star rating...

My experience with this company is shocking. They ignore emails, telephone calls and letters and when I have spoken to someone they were so rude and discourteous I don’t want to talk with them again. This is the second year they have not met their responsibility of sending an invoice - I think they may be waiting for me to forget paying them so they can charge extortionate fees! Also, my lease states if I pay before the end of the year I can get a small discount but they don’t apply that on their online system and when I did call to ask for the discount they asked me to put it in writing, which I did and then they refused to acknowledge my requests, never mind reimbursing the discount. Would I recommend them? NO.

They are a total disgrace. I don't think I could live with myself if I worked for a company that ripped people off so blatantly, or worse still if I was a director of a company of con-artists like this. Their employees must be embarrassed or very thick skinned. I was a couple of weeks late in paying ground rent of £100. They sent me a reminder letter. I usually settle accounts every couple of months so I was approx 6 weeks late in paying overall, but when I came to pay they added on a £132 admin charge so they wanted £232 in total. After a lot of emails back and forth they reduced the charge to £66. I said that I would take them to the relevant tribunal. They clearly know that to contest this at a tribunal costs a minimum £100 application fee and so they obviously stick a big penalty on to their ground rent demand if it is slightly late, as they know it is about the same price as the application fee to the tribunal so it is less hassle to pay. If i treated my clients who pay me late in the same way, I would have no business left. The problem is there is no recourse as the tribunal fee is not refundable. I would like to say steer clear but you probably won't have a choice and these mercenaries know this. This seems to be a major flaw in the private rental market. I am going to look into how this can be addressed. I can afford to pay but I pity the people to whom this is a massive chunk of their income. Shame on you Simarc for ripping people off. You sicken me.