Property Manager? Please.

It's in the name isn't it? MANAGING COMPANY. In every field of work management level jobs require some form of organisation and understanding of the job that you do. If you have employees, you manage them. If you have customers or clients, you know that they are the reason you have a job and you try your best to provide a good service to them. Now I am a manager myself. I would never claim to be the best manager in the world, however I know what I am doing. I would never describe myself as one of 'those' people who annoyingly say "the customer is always right" yet I will always honour circumstances where the customer is indeed right.

If only every company ran that way.

I moved house 2 weeks ago today. The most stressful time of your life they told me. Pah! I said. Ridiculous. I can do anything! Yes, well I did it. No thanks to the company that I moved with and who I found out once signing the rental agreement, are the same company manages the property. Great. Back to the days of house inspections. I feel like a student again.

Please bear in mind that in my last property, I spoke with the manager about 3 times in 2 and a half years. When I left, I had an outstanding reference and received all of my damage deposit back. Not to claim that I am the perfect tenant, but I am a darn good one. Apparently this means nothing and now I fear I will end up paying through the nose because of the incompetence of a property management company. I would totally destroy their name on here if I thought I wouldn't get sued, and seeing as I just moved, I don't think it's a good idea in case I get kicked out also.

So we moved in, it was a busy, sweaty day. We even picked up the keys early. Up to this point I had been thoroughly impressed with the people in the lettings agency. Yes they all seemed a little young and inexperienced, however they were all polite and respectful. The guy who showed us the flat in particular was very friendly and approachable. Things started to go wrong when we were given the keys. One set. For two adults who had applied to live there over a month ago. To give credit to 'A' (for we shall refer to him as this!) he told us we could go get some keys cut and claim the money back off our next rental instalment. Although this was inconvenient as  I'd rather not spend moving day running around key cutting stores, we agreed. I then asked about the inventory of the flat and if we could take a copy to check it over when we arrived in our new home. After an awkward few minutes where A disappeared to find it, he came back and said it was currently being typed up and we would have it sent out by email by the end of the day. Alarm bells started to ding a little, but we had a lot to do so I agreed and we left.

SO by the evening we still had no inventory. By now we had moved all the stuff in and I was starting to get annoyed as at this point it would be difficult to check everything thoroughly. Also, the mere fact of us having moved in now would not be good when arguing against damages at the end of the tenancy (if necessary of course, I hadn't had to do so for my last flat however let's just call me a realist!). I actually told my partner at this point that we'd just have to wait till tomorrow as we still had to go get keys cut.

Cue our arrival at Timpsons (they cut keys!). As usual, nice service, done quick. Here however, we were told that the main building key could not be cut, it had to be ordered as it was a security key and this couldn't be done without the written consent of the building's owner. I know. HOW was this not sorted before we moved? So we gritted our teeth for the night, giving the management company the benefit of the doubt and we'd call them in the morning.

The next day my partner called the property managers. We had a list of questions: we had discovered a burglar alarm which we had no code to, we also saw a sign saying permits were needed to park in the carpark. We also had no idea what utility companies we were with. I however managed to sort that out sans management, but we were still in desperate need of a key. We both work and moving our schedules to match was a near impossibility. We were told the inventory was STILL being typed up and it would be emailed out to us and that the girl on the phone would contact the landlord ref the written consent for a key.

The following day (!) we were contacted with the wrong code for the alarm (which to this day we do not have a code for as we were told if the code they had didn't work there was nothing they could do) and I was told that there was no understanding of the landlord that I would need a parking permit. The inventory was not given to us nor mentioned on these emails. Later on in the day we finally received an email with an attachment from the landlord giving permission for the key to be cut. However he put the wrong address on the email and it was also worded wrong - it needed to be a request for a secure key to be ordered. So we contacted the agents again via email to try and have this corrected.

By now we are onto Friday of moving week. No inventory, no help at all. On Friday myself and my partner sent separate emails trying to chase up the key and inventory and both were ignored. There was simply no response. Not even a "we are still looking into this".

We didn't hear a thing until Monday. The day we really started to get mad.

We received an email saying that our signed inventory was still outstanding and that we has still yet to sign and return it, please could we sign the attachment and return it to confirm........there was no attachment. I hit the roof. How DARE they accuse us of not doing what we are supposed to when they hadn't even sent it out! I emailed right back telling them we haven't received it. At the same time, unbeknownst to me my partner was on the phone to them explained the exact same thing. He was told it was sent out last week (we had not received it.) He was then told, they would resend it via email so that we could get it back to them asap.

Later on Monday afternoon, I had a call saying that they had spoken to the landlord and that they would be able to sort a door key out for us, but that it would take at least 2 weeks. To give them credit, they told me that they would let us have their management key in the meantime so as not to disrupt our lives too much. If you just read that little fact it looks great. In fact, I nearly forgave them everything at that point. I thought it showed real client care and foresight on their part. Except that had they really had foresight, they'd have done that from the word go.

I got home from work Monday night and guess what I found in the letterbox? An inventory! Hooray! Still, no copy via email as promised (now on two occasions) but at least we had one. So I immediately went through it and edited, added, changed the details. I was immediately concerned. There were numerous problems with the flat that were not listed in the inventory, and some things were not even noted at all. For example, there was no investigation of the internal part of the cooker. The toilet was not listed. There was a clear cigarette burn in the living room carpet that was missed. I added them all and as my partner was away until weds with work, I left it for him to check over and hand in on weds, the day I had arranged for him to pick up the management key from the local office. Simple you'd think!

It was noted on the inventory that we were supposed to hand it in no later than 72hrs after we moved in. I amended this with a note stating the date it had been received and that we would hand it in within 72hrs of this date.

On the weds (over a week now since we moved in) we handed over the inventory and received our temporary key. My partner was told that it would be looked at during the week and any problems we would be contacted. Again, sound like everything was now sorted. Fantastic.

Let's skip forward 6 days. To today. I received an email once more from the management agency telling me that WE STILL HAVE NOT SIGNED AND HANDED IN OUR INVENTORY. Not, "can you confirm this has been done?". It was stated that we had not done it. I immediately replied saying that we had done so a week ago and I needed it confirmed asap as there was a lot of edits on there that needed confirming. But of course, at this point I became a bit annoyed and het up. Because this agency classically do not reply to emails, I called them and left a message asking to be called back.

Quite promptly I received a call from 'D' (which was nice that I didn't have to wait!) and I outlined my concerns. I told D that this was the second time we had been told that we hadn't done something and to be quite honest I was annoyed with it now. Neither time had been us at fault and the communication between branches was in need of sorting out. D told me that our inventory was probably lying on someone's desk and that they had done the correct thing in contacting us otherwise they might have not known it was missing. I again relayed that it was with one of their offices as agreed and they should have been contacted first. I told the agent that I was worried that as it had been so long now since we moved in that this would not be taken into account when looking at the edits. I asked for his assurance that it would be taken into account as there was so many things missed on their inventory. I did not want to get to the end of the tenancy only to find we are charged for things that were missed by them.

D told me that he would not give me that assurance. He told me that without looking at it he couldn't say anything and that things could have happened since we moved in. I pointed out that this wouldn't be an issue if we'd been given the inventory on moving day but that was ignored. D told me that he would get back to me once he had seen the inventory.

I asked him if he could at least get back to me today. I was told in a very "couldn't care less" way that IF he found it today he would get in contact, if not then I would have to wait until he did.

So there we have it ladies and gents. Professionalism at it's best. Now please don't go away thinking, oh people always exaggerate when they are mad or when they want something. All I want is to live in my new home and not have this lurking over me. It should not take 3 weeks to get something so basic sorted when moving. I can say with absolute certainty that I will NEVER be moving with agency ever again, and if anyone else chooses to, good luck to them.