Sutton Kersh - avoid, avoid, avoid! (Renting a Home)

Member Name: Sweetheart

Product:	Renting a Home
Date:	17/02/01 (337 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good if you had low blood pressure...

Disadvantages: Useless and rude in every way, inefficient, not very truthful!

The story of my relationship with the letting agents Sutton Kersh began three months ago. I moved up to the north west, and was looking around for a decent city centre flat. I found a lovely one with parking and in a good location, the only problem was the outrageously high rent - twice the amount that I had paid the last time I rented in the UK. The agents wanted a hefty deposit and two personal references, which I willingly gave them. They did not however bother to check up on these.

Two weeks later, I drove the 6 hours with my stuff and furniture to collect the keys and move in. Already things were starting to look bad, having reached the flat, the agents did not meet up there but instead expected us to drive for another 30 minutes to a remote part of town to collect the keys. Tired and crabby, we drove there, collected the keys and the number for the alarm, then headed to my new home...

A catalogue of disasters followed, and I spent a fortune calling around various companies, after calling Sutton Kersh and basically getting no information. The alarm was complicated and the agents couldn't advise me how it worked; thankfully the people who installed it could. Likewise the heating was on some biazzar time thing, again I had to call out an engineer to sort it out. Then came the mail box - the post is delived to a box at the main door and the agents hadn't given me a key - I asked for one and they denied all knowledge of it. In this case I asked the very kind caretaker to rip off the old lock and relace it, just one day before my birthday post! Again I paid for this.

Phew, and they're is more...I found fleas in the carpet - aaagh! Then just as things were begining to cool off - the washing machine door jammed with a load in it and the fridge died on the same day! enough! It took over 15 calls and two weeks to get them fixed. The worst part was the fact that for a week the dim cow (sorry, but if you'd dealt wi
th her...) at the agency admitted that she'd been calling the wrong landlord. So exasperating, and disruptive to my work day I can tell you!

Most recently, the water in the kitchen was off for a day last week, and they sent an electician out to fix it...luckily he was a bit of a handy man so I get some water now.

Not much else can go wrong to be honest. I still have a real battle with getting keys out of them, the flat has two bedrooms and they gave me one set of keys. I asked for a second but no joy, and when I went to get another set cut myself I was told I couldn't without a note from the owner, and then they would set me back around 50 pounds...I shopped around a bit and finally got a a set cut for 25 pounds. Just have to work out now who locked the meter cuboard outside my door, and where I can get my hands on a key for it...

So why am I still here?? Well here's the best bit - it's a twelve month contract. Fantastic. Thing is, do you think that the landlord - who must pay a huge amount to the agents - knows how useless Sutton Kersh are??

**UPDATE**
Ok, so you'll probably loose any sympathy for my plight when I tell you what I did after I moved out of this flat...well, after paying half my monthly salary on rent, I decided that a morgage would actually cost less, so I opted to buy a flat...and here's the best bit...I bought it from sutton Kersh. Suffice to say that it took me 9, yes 9 months to complete - after initially beoing told it would be 4 to 6 weeks - and I will never, ever, as long as I live deal with those people again. I'd advise you to steer clear if you can! the problem is of couse that somehow, and god knows how, they seem to have the best flats on the market right now...here's hoping that changes!

Summary: