Back when I started my flat search I came across a beautiful one in Langton’s Wharf which I was most glad of given the standard of most I had seen. Having arranged a second viewing for everyone else we decided to take it.
By the time the agent had got back to the office his colleague had just taken the fee from someone else. I was devastated but luckily I soon came across another flat which was nice and cheap marketed by an agent named Walker Singleton. Thus begins my fantastic tale…
I booked an appointment to view the place. The guy that showed us round wasn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the draw. He had never been to the property before and didn’t really have any idea what was going on. He explained it was very strange that it didn’t have a washing machine. I explained to him it was probably communal. Because it’s perfectly normal to explain to the letting agent the setup at a perspective property.
He didn’t know how the parking situation worked either. Or the policies for the communal garden. Or the council tax band. He told me he would get someone at the office to phone me about the council tax band. They never did.
It wasn’t the best viewing ever, namely because there was no electricity so we couldn’t really see anything without using our phones as torches. Of course he didn’t know how why the electrics were out or how to get them back on.
Anyway we decided to go with it. They wouldn’t sign up up anywhere but their office though – which is in Halifax. So I changed my plans and arranged to go down there and get it all sorted on the Friday of the AHS Conference when I had to be out of my current house by the Monday. Not ideal but I recruited some hired help to get everything moved and ordered by BT line so we could get the internet up and running asap.
Thursday, the day before the move arrives and I get a phone call. It’s the letting agent informing me that there was a leak in the property and so I couldn’t move in. Brilliant.
I spoke to my current landlord and luckily he had another property he could give me for a month – so having got back from Warwick I spent the Monday night moving into this other property. Which is a bit of a nightmare in one night as I’m sure you can imagine.
Over the next few days and weeks I continue talks with the letting agent – as well as looking elsewhere unfortunately the only other letting agent with any suitable properties listed on Rightmove are also morons who have let all their properties but insist on relisting them – when I can of course because they don’t answer their phones, it just drops to voicemail almost immediately every time you ring them and I have never yet had them return a voicemail message despite rining them every day, often several times a day.
It turns out the leak is coming from one of six other flats but the people at Walker Singleton don’t know who the other flats belong to or who owns the building so they can’t get it sorted and they don’t know who to contact about it.
This goes on for weeks and they still can’t find out where this leak is coming from. How does that work? As a letting agent are you not concerned about such issues as your property flooding? I mean you just couldn’t write this stuff.
I phoned them on Friday and finally got through on the third time to find out they had another flat in the same building that I could have for a short period if I wanted until the actual flat was really. I suggested we just have that one instead, apparently that hadn’t occured to them.
They said I could look round it – how nice of them. But they couldn’t be bothered to actually show me round it, they told me I had to come to Halifax to pick the keys up! So Monday I sped over to Halifax on my lunch break and picked up the keys.
I had been prewarned that the place was a bit of a state – it only had two en-suite bedrooms but it had a communal bathroom so that wasn’t a problem and the smashed in windows were getting replaced. “Sounds great” I said. I also enquired if there was a code to the building and was told there wasn’t. So I got back in my car and headed back to Leeds. As I pulled off I got a phone call. From Walker Singleton. “Oh, by the way, there is a door code.”
I went to look round after work and tried the front door – but the code didn’t work. That meant I couldn’t check out any of the communal facilities but luckily the apartment can be accessed from the outside.
I went in and picked my way over the broken glass and piles of junkmail. It was suprisingly underground for a “ground floor flat.” That and it only had two bedrooms and a mystery door – which the handle for was lying on the floor and even when I reconstructed it, it was locked. Was it a bathroom? A third bedroom? Who knows.
I phoned them back on Tuesday and told them about my experiences. I asked about another apartment which she said she needed to speak to her colleague about and would phone me back. She didn’t, so I phoned her and she said she had spoken to her colleague and it was still available but she needed to speak to her manager to see if they could lower the price.
I was desperate at this point so I said I wasn’t too bothered but she said she would phone me back later that afternoon to confirm the price. She didn’t so I phoned her back again on Wednesday morning and she said she was still waiting to speak to her manager. I replied “no, it’s fine, I’ll pay the asking price.” She responded, “well, I’ll speak to my manager and see if we can do it a bit cheaper.”
They weren’t answering their phones in the early afternoon but around 2-3ish joy of all joys – they actually rang me and said that it was available (no new information or anything) and suggested I come down to pick the keys up to have a look at it – again, they weren’t prepared to show me round or anything.
Also their contractor was coming to do some work on it tomorrow so I had to go to Halifax, picks the keys up, drive back to Leeds, have a look round, drive back to Halifax and give them the keys back so they could give them to the contractor and then drive back to Leeds in time to get my train down to London. In order to do this I had to change my train tickets which cost me £9.35 for the ticket and £15 in “admin fees.”
I get to work at 7:20 so I can make an early start and get away early. Except nobody else decides to turn up early today and I don’t have any keys – so I spend 50 minutes sat outside waiting for someone who does, to turn up.
I had out just before 12 and race over to Halifax and pick the keys up. Stepanie’s colleague informs me that she is out but has left the keys for me to pick up. So I take them and head back to Leeds to check out the apartment.
I get into the building easily enough and find apartment 31 – except the keys don’t work. I phone Stephanie who says everyone else has gotten in without a problem so I give it a few more tries, still nothing. I give up in the end after ten minutes of trying to open the door with these keys and head for the exit at which point I run into the caretaker of the building.
He offers to give it a go for me and on our way up there realises the problem – there was a leak and they don’t have any contact details for Walker Singleton and so couldn’t get the keys and so had to break in and replace the locks.
The caretaker manages to find the person with the keys and show me round (it was very nice) but also explains they have had some water damage and so currently it has no floor – and this won’t be going in for another week. Walker Singleton don’t know this because they don’t have any contact details for each other and also, thanks to the locks being changed, my letting agent no longer has a set of keys to get into the flat.
By this time it’s too late to run back to Halifax as I have an adjusted train to catch. I head down to London and back, my training arriving back into Leeds at around midnight and I’m not in the best mood because I got absolutely soaked in London with the rain despite having both a coat and an umbrella. At which point I have to drive to Halifax and back before I can go to bed.
I agree to take the place because it is very nice and finally make an apointment to sign up, but it isn’t until the week after because they don’t want to do it until the refurbishment work has been done. Of course by the time I actually sign up on the Friday after it still hasn’t been finished.
They do at least agree to sign me up at the property and I meet Adam there who seems to know a little more about the general situation though has no idea what any of the keys do. Or what the code to the building is. He promises he’ll get someone to ring me with the details that afternoon – which of course they don’t.
And despite claiming to have visited the apartment several times to run all their “checks” they seem to have failed to notice or ignored that the place is a right state with stuff still left by the previous tenants in the cupboards and random bottles of cleaning chemicals everywhere as well as the surfaces not being clean. Something I have extensively documented with my digital camera and will be returning the property in a similar state.
So that is my experience with Walker Singleton so far. I’ll leave you to make up your own mind. The scary thing is though, they’re probably all just as bad.
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Tags: flats, housing, letting agents
This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 1:24 pm and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.