Owning your own home

I once used Foxton's to let a place for my mother.

I won't be using their services ever again.

Hah I would let any agency let anything for me, ever.

/csb warning

I got legal with Foxtons in 2013 as a tenant after they were extremely dishonest and unreliable over a property that I rented. They were managing it for a expat and on moving in day I discovered that it was smeared with dog shit and piss. They told the landlord that we were lying and that it had been "professionally cleaned" (he was in SA so couldn't check) and then demanded twelve months of rent after we refused to move in. The landlord was told that we faked our financial references and were trying to wriggle out because we had no money.

It looked like it was heading to court but then the lettings manager at that particular branch accidentally forwarded me an email of a conversation between Foxtons staff discussing how they were going to lie to cover their tracks and dupe the landlord. Once I passed that on to my solicitor, they backed off without a word, paid compensation and my legal costs. At that point I was glad that I had used a £1k per hour solicitor.

Utter cunts.

Agency lettings is absolutely where morals go to die

Jesus, that's quite a story.

Can solicitors really cost £1k per hour!?

Should have taken them to court for that.

I'm afraid so. Massive overkill on our part but simply reflects the level of confidence we had on the matter and the fact we wanted to shit them up a bit. The principal of the matter had us so furious that we were happy to pay through the nose to make an example of them so went with a solicitor with a few high profile defeats of estate agents. I guess we were lucky that we got that money back.

It also didn't take many hours. Small change compared to the cost of the tenancy agreement they were trying to hold us to.

I just remembered. There was an extra step. They initially agreed to tear up the tenancy agreement but then tried to hold us for paying a year's worth of the management fee on the property "as a favour".

Foxtons also twice lost the keys of the flat I was renting, which they were managing, so when I got locked out they just shrugged and said I should call the landlord to let me in.

The landlord lived 300miles away.

Foxtons sales may have changed tactics a bit. They didn't come in as the highest valuation for our flat when we were having agents over (and in fact we ended up selling at exactly their valuation level). The guy was a manager from the Brixton office, he was level headed and reasonable. No bullshit. I was shocked.
He said their pricing model has changed as the market won't take super high valuations at the moment - people just won't view a place that's overpriced.

Still didn't go with them as their fees take the piss.

Cry evrytim

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Feel like pure shit just want to get 400p back

He fixed ours on Monday, my wife was very impressed good price, no bullshit, didn't try to upsell or blag anything. I'll definitely add to the recommendation.

Also he does all boilers,(ours is a baxi ) for those that don't have a Vaillant.

Foxtons seem to send me a lot of mail saying they've sold a flat in my block recently

Foxtons say a lot of things. Whether those things are true is another matter.

Head over to the bitcoin thread...

Fucking hell estate agents are a pain in the arse to deal with.

We thought at least that the ones who we are selling with (who we bought with five years ago) might be the exception, but they seem like they're showing their true colours too.

The ones we are trying to buy with either don't know their clients, or are feeding us bullshit too, or both.

It's fucking bollocks that the biggest transactions of your life are arranged by people you really don't feel you can trust.

Fucking hell estate agents are a pain in the arse to deal with.

Yeah. The biggest purchase you will ever make and anyone can be one.

The lack of official qualification pisses me right off.

'Internal Vetting' can get right in the sea.

Can anyone recommend a tree surgeon to cut back a neighbour's tree to the boundary in E7? My neighbour is happy for them to trim back their side too as he's quite elderly and can't really look after it any more. I'd like to find someone that will do a nice job rather than just hack it back so happy to pay a bit more if needed.

I'd check out Leytonstone life or forest gate life for reccos for that..

Cheers, but I'm not on Facebook.

Might be totally misremembering, but doesn't @edmundro work with trees and live in NE LDN?

I think he went back to mirror balls? Or was it back from mirror balls to tree surgery?

The English nicely stick with the Latin inanis.

Loosely related; but does anyone here have experience of a Lifetime ISAs? The places that offer them all seem to be much of a muchness, but I've no clue where to start (I am 30 y/o)

I have one with Nutmeg.

CSB

Worth getting a Nutmeg account? I want to save a few quid for a few years... just because you know?