Grant Property, Latest in a Bad Line of Property Agents who Don’t Look After Their Property

My previous grumpy blog post about property agents who don’t maintain the property they rent out got me a phone call from Click Let.  Weird how a Twitter post will get more of a response then a year’s worth of e-mails.  Was he calling to propose helping with maintaining the property we share? Of course not, he was complaining that I had said they were happy to rent out a property they know doesn’t meet the legal standard.  He said the people living upstairs would fix it.  Or the council.  Or someone else.  But not him.  Which rather confirms what I said.

Weirdly the Click Let man even reported himself to The Scottish Association of Landlords who of course said it was fine not to inspect the property and the repairing standard doesn’t apply to roofs (because the tenant doesn’t have access to them allegedly even though they do if they bother to walk up to it).   Which confirms my fears that this is an industry wide problem where a sense of self entitlement means these companies (like the landlords themselves) consider maintaining the building to be outwith their duties.  So as I say, perfectly happy to rent out buildings regardless of the state they are in.

One of my more useful neighbours has organised some repairs on the roof and the roofers pointed out some crumbling stone that needed further repairs.  The council sent round someone who told me the same a decade ago and with scaffold up it seemed like a chance not to be missed to get them done easily.  I set up a poll of neighbours and asked them to vote on whether they agreed. Slowly votes came in from neighbours but not the majority needed.  Annoyingly the landlord registration doesn’t have useful stuff like phone numbers, I tried to search for some in the phone book and even facebook but without luck.  One of the neighbours we’d never heard from had started renting out their property but of course we’d never heard from him or his agent Grant Propetry.

I called Grant Property but was told the person in charge of repairs was busy and would call me back.  He didn’t so I called him again and hassled him about getting a vote on the question.  He said I shouldn’t hassle him because he was “trying to help me” which showed a complete misunderstanding of the situation.  I was offering to do his job for him and he was blocking me but he thought he was helping me.  Incredible.

He sent an e-mail about being unable to do anything if the landlord doesn’t instruct him and that’s all we heard from.  I did eventually get the vote needed for a majority to be able to go ahead with the works but I’m so saddened and disappointed at yet more people who don’t want to look after their property or the property they rent out and just treat it as a bank account.

Lessons:

  • the repairing standard needs clarified to ensure the roof is included for everyone (which I’m sceptical is not the case already)
  • agents complain when you say they are happy not to have responsibility but then claim they have no responsibility.  insane.
  • agents respond more to an unfavourable Twitter post than they do a direct e-mail.  it makes you mad.