Are lettings agencies all like this?

[WeepingAngelInTheTardis]

Ive been renting a property for nine years.

a new lettings recently took over, piror to that i would constantly report repairs and they would send someone out and they wouldn’t be done.
The guy would shrug his shoulders “im not an electrican i cant touch wiring.” “I cant fix the back door im not a builder.” Etc etc etc
I would tell them and they would never bother to send anyone qualified. It is all listed on a previous inspection as the LL sent someone independently.

new lettings took over, did a house inspection and again ive reported the repairs needing doing and ive had a shitty text telling me i should of reported them sooner as they weren’t aware?!
I explained to them at the time, the previous lettings were rubbish and weren’t doing repairs and these had been reported MANY times. The person who did the inspection admitted she didn’t really know what she was doing as shes never done inspections before and took 100s of photos… and wasn’t really listening.

Am i wrong for being upset here? Many of the repairs needing doing were actually like this WHEN WE MOVED IN and I told her this.

Send them copies of previous reports and point out you raised the issues multiple times, but they were never addressed. The agency is mitigating costs for their client the landlord, play the game and put them straight.

As an aside, years ago I found out that my tenant had reported issues many times and it was only when she couldn't secure the house and the agents did nothing that she contacted me directly. I was able to fix the issues in an afternoon. I managed it myself after that.

I actually asked the old lettings for the landlords number as they were so bad but they kept refusing to past it onto me its in the old report that i asked for it specifically. I will send on the old reports and show them. Im really annoyed as the only thing that has croped up in between is a tap washer that needs replacing (fucking pennies!) and some of the floor boards are loose and need screwing back in but neither is my fault its just the result of the LL not spending money for nine years. Theyve even brought up the carpet which has worn down and they said themselves what did LL expect you can feel they are thin & cheap!!!

You can find the owner of your property on the land registry. It cost about £4 when I did it I had to track down the owner of the house next door like that .

I will do if the lettings cause me anymore upset, the LL is very well aware of the issues (apart from
the two i have mentioned as they are recent things) as the report went directly to the LL. I think whats happened is the old lettings have said theyve done all the repairs to the LL but haven’t actually done them.
I think I am more annoyed that I explained what happened at the inspection and they are behaving like I haven’t said anything because they were rushing, theyve also listed wrong repairs such as windows not the back doors ughhh.

Yep

We rented for over 13 years and apart from guttering/roof tiles/flat roof, external door locks or legally required electrics/gas certificates/fixes they would not fix anything.

We had horrific rising damp, so bad it rotted through the floor joists and the floor actually collapsed they sent loads of people to look at it but never fixed it. The poor contractors where lovely and always appalled. They often sent the same contractor more than once who would phone them in front of me and tell them how urgent it was in recorded messages (for proof that it was reported) and still they would tell me 'don't hold your breath for them to fix it'. It became a game for them of how long, like 'Jesus I was here 5 years ago and this has STILL not been fixed'.

It finally hit a head when the always fritzy boiler completely died, the gas man explained to them several times it was well past its life span and not fixable (he tried many time at their demand but non of the fixes worked) but they refused a new one. For months we had no hot water, no heating and couldn't shower etc... the house literally became completely unusable at that point.

We moved out and they tried to claim our deposit. We appealed and where found not at fault and got the whole deposit back as their own 'evidence' records showed their own lack of basic maintenance caused all the issues.

We moved out 6 months ago, the house is empty and has been guttered. They are doing a full back to brick reno which is ridiculous as they wouldn't even replace the boiler that didn't work while we where PAYING them to live there. Apparently thats the standard, they wait the tenant out then go into the empty house, do the full works all at once to get the best price premium from the next tenant for everything being 'brand new'.

When looking at houses we stopped looking at ex-rentals as honestly many where somehow even worse than the one we lived in. The worst houses I have ever seen have been private landlord houses.

They’ve just sent me a message (the owner of the lettings) apologising saying the handover was balls up and no repairs for any houses were ever passed on to them which why they are now doing inspections to fix all the issues as apparently theres a lot of repairs needing doing across the board that only came to light last month. They’ve just apologised and said our rental is one of the ones with least repairs needing doing!
So not really sure what the first message was about but hey ho, its been sent to their repairs man so fingers crossed!

Reading things like this makes me incandescent with rage. The laws in this country need to be radically overhauled to protect the tenant. I also do not think anyone should become a landlord if they can't afford to buy property outright / or say a minimum of an 80% deposit. If they have taken on a second mortgage and can't afford the moral obligations of maintaining said property, they clearly don't have enough disposable income/should be held to account by the law.