Homelets – Student Reviews On Letting Agents

Had a really bad experience with this company a while back, we put a deposit down for a house and then they gave it to another group! Then didn’t give our money back for two weeks (and would have been longer if we hadn’t been calling up every other day). Staff were really rude and just terrible to deal with.

I’ve unfortunately had the displeasure of working with this agency for 2 years, I understand student estate agents are going to attempt to take the piss but they really take it to a whole new level, so here’s a brief list of what we’ve experienced with them. 1st year: Rooms were made of plasterboard and temperatures in winter were often below freezing at night and less than 5 degrees in the day with the heating on. Radiator fell off wall and couldn’t be attached as it was made of plasterboard so had to be drilled into a plank of wood. Damp everywhere in my room which was ‘fixed’ by painting over it with white paint, rather than professionally done to avoid the issue in the future (a recurring theme in their houses). Tried to charge us for cleaning, despite the fact they must have done the same with older tenants and simply not carried out said cleaning (proof in the fact that we found multiple newspapers down the back of our fridge from 2013, we moved in in 2016). 2nd year: Damp in my room, leading to 2 pairs of shoes and a coat getting ruined. We were told that the electrics in the house needed to be urgently done and builders came in without prior notice during our exam period, when we asked why the work wasn’t urgent prior to this we were simply told ‘it wasn’t urgent then’ despite the entire house’s electrics needing to be rewired, a job I might add that the builders messed up, resulting in our kitchen light turning off the power for the bottom two floors for a week and a half, but don’t worry, this wasn’t urgent enough for them! Also found out that the stair bannisters were not of legal height and needed to be fixed, although other homelets properties definitely have lower bannisters and are much less safe? strange one that. They used the house as storage, keeping a huge drinks fridge in our foyer for 6 months, when we asked why it was still there we were simply told ‘it’s there for a reason’ – Great one guys love the A+ communication with your paying tennants. Instead of coming out to do work to the house, we were instead provided with supplies to do it ourselves, (no I shouldn’t have to paint over the damp in my room, that’s not how it gets fixed). The extractor fan in the kitchen (that didn’t work for months) also wasn’t attached to anything, so no air was going outside, just into the vent and back out into the kitchen. Finally they charged us with cleaning the place despite it being almost inhospitable by human standards and claimed the walls were ‘marked’ meaning we each lost money.

If you’re thinking of renting a property in Brighton stay WELL AWAY Homelets. They will fuck you over with any opportunity they get, especially if they know you are a student. They are f****ing criminals.

STAY AWAY FROM THIS AGENT UNDER ANY POSSIBLE CIRCUMSTANCES. Okay. How do I start? I’m a second year student, when I view the flat, the agent told me that the water bill would be included, but when I turned up to sign the contract, they told me that water bill wasn’t included. It was only £25 extra that I had to pay but it wasn’t about the money, instead it’s the principle because it was part of the pre-contractual terms that got me into the contract. I tried to raise the issue to the agent who had been dealing with me that this was not what she said when I viewed the flat. She started getting all raggo and was in denial about what she’d said because ‘she never knew it was included’. And she started yelling at me that she was not forcing me to sign the contract and that I didn’t have to sign it. And in the end the woman took the contract away from me when I was still reading it. I had to enter the contract in the end because I had no choice, university had already started and I still hadn’t sorted out my accommodation. On top of this, throughout the whole time prior to signing the contract, they were just super incompetent that they had mistaken the date of moving in, the deposit amount etc MULTIPLE times even after I had rang them and reminded them the mistake they made a couple of times. Apart from all that dodgy things this agency did, the staff were really really rude especially the French woman who dealt with my renting. I had never in my life received any customer service worse than this experience.

A truly appalling company. They are one of only 2 letting companies in brighton NOT RECOMMENDED by Brighton university student housing and they do not follow recommended guidelines set out by the government for the letting of houses. I have had the misfortune of having to deal with them on numerous occasions now and have sat in their office watching how they work. They are a disgrace. They lie about what they will do to a property before letting, they charge for work not done, they promise to ensure repairs are undertaken and they are not, they try to imply it is the students’ fault when it is not not. They are rude. They refuse to speak to the parents, preferring to conduct their communication through one lead tenant, although they will speak to us fast enough if we withold the rent in lieu of lack of repairs. I could go on. I am not a student, but a parent. If i could give a piece of advice to any parent helping their kids get started at uni, or directly to any student starting out, it would be this: DO NOT ENTER THIS ESTABLISHMENT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. GO DIRECTLY TO THE STUDENTS HOUSING ASSOC OR CALL OR GO ON LINE AND GET A LIST OF REPUTABLE AGENTS – THERE ARE LOTS TO CHOOSE FROM. This agent should not be allowed to continue to operate the shady practices it gets away with. Abysmal.

Don’t even know where to start. DONT RENT WITH HOMELETS. Before we moved they said that the house would be having a fair amount of work done to make it better condition and they said they would get the contract cleaners in. So on move in day there were still empty alcohol bottles from the previous tenants. We spent hours cleaning the house which we shouldn’t have had to do, Homelets made out that we were over reacting because apparently they are the best contract cleaners they have ever had. Lies. The furniture in every room was in poor condition, most of it was falling apart and lacking things. Two bedrooms were missing a desk chair and others missing chest of draws, we had to go out and buy our own stuff. The taps are broken, they run by themselves, we asked to get this fix they sent people but the problem has only been made worse. Some windows in the house will not open at all, we asked to get this fixed numerous times. They sent a man round to quote for the windows but we never heard anything since. We now have mould forming nearly everywhere, underneath the window in the front room has it the worst, so we emailed Homelets a photograph and asked them if they could get the window fixed so we can open it so we can sort out the mould. She replied saying that it was condensation and sent us a leaflet and the first point on the leaflet said “open the window”. I have damp in the back wall of my room, and all my clothes in my wardrobe are becoming mouldy because of the wall. I am yet to talk to Homelets about it because they refuse to talk to anyone but the lead tenant and unfortunately I am not the lead tenant. I could go on forever but just don’t go to Homelets

This letting agents is a disgrace. They rip students off, because they can. They took over £1,750 out of our deposits collectively and tried to justify it by saying ‘cleaning costs’. We had awful appliances with problems throughout the year, but never any help from Homelets when we called. Try and avoid Homelets where possible. They are the definition of crooks.

Homelets are the kind of letting agent that would be around if the Nazis had won the war. They are shockingly bad and the fact that they can even call themselves a company baffles me. This so not just my experiences with them this is all of my friends opinions who also made the terrible mistake of choosing homelets as there letting agents. They are the only agents in Brighton who arent part of a governing body, this is so they cant be made accountable for what they do unless brought to court (something they know is hard for renters to do). This is your warning stay way clear of them!

Homelets are by far the most incompetent and useless people I have ever had to misfortune to come across. They are very unprofessional and have no clue as to what they are actually doing. When we ring up to pay our rent they always debit the wrong amount from our accounts even though we tell them exactly how much our rent is (you’d think they know). Whenever we have maintenance issues all they said is ‘that the landlord has his own engineer’ – well that is nice Homelets – when is he going to fix it?? They can never tell us anything and refuse to let us contact the landlord directly even though we have paid HUGE agency fees for the supposed ‘benefits’ of renting through a letting agency. If we ring to report an issue or enquiry about something they say ‘can you put it in an email’ – which we have done at least three times and still have had no response. When you go into their office, they all sit there and pass calls around and I have overheard on several occasions ‘who wants to talk to XXX’ as neither of them can be bothered and it seems like effort to actually talk to the tenants who in effect pay their salary through the rent we pay. THEY ARE USELESS AND INCOMPETENT – DO NO USE !!!!

Went with them in first year because all the others had been taken. They seem to think that students are some how inhuman judging by the state of the property when we got it. At the check out they had the nerve to complain about some hairs and dust on some tables and under the sofa and wouldn’t let us clean them up there and then, they insisted that professional cleaners were needed and would cost £120. £120 out of our deposit, we spent two whole days cleaning that house when we got it. I’m assuming they did this crap with the last occupants but just didn’t use the money for cleaning and kept it. Avoid them at all costs!

Houses were always full of problems – mould, damp etc The staff were rude and unhelpful, and didn’t explain contracts particularly well.

Got a house with them last year, was ok, but constantly was having problems with the house, and it would take so long for things to be fixed. They’d also occasionally show up without any warning to us. When it came to deposit time, they completely screwed us over, charging us on everything that was not worth being charged. We were forced to pay for a whole new fridge freezer, which we knew for a fact was not broken (it was ancient however, and was subject to much wear and tear over the years – not our fault), but their excuse was that it had been iced over and was not ‘usuable’…so we tell them that the reasonable and simple thing to do would be to defrost it, to which we received much bullshit and any excuse under the sun that this would not be possible. This year we made a stupid mistake to go with them again, (not through choice but because we left looking for a house too late). The house is literally falling apart, mould everywhere, the ceiling in my room recently collapsed due to a leak from the roof and destroyed my bed and many of my personal belongings. I was without a room for weeks before the leakage had been fixed. I have now been left without compensation of rent for the time i was unable to live in that room, no compensation for the damage to any of my belongings, I am now left to sleep on the floor for the rest of my time in this house because I cannot afford to buy a bed, and they will not replace it even though it is their fault the house had not been previously maintained. To sum up, I could keep writing forever on why not to go with home lets, my experience with them has been absolutely miserable, and they seriously lack any compassion or courtesy for anyone. DO NOT GO WITH HOMELETS!!!

I went with Homelets in my first year and they provided an absolutely awful service. They pressured us whilst viewing letting us know that the property in question was the ‘last property on their books’ and that there were no more 4 bedroom properties left in this area (I know now this to be obviously incorrect) and the contract and financial implications were not explained to us. The estate agents punctuality was awful as was the contract explanation. When we went to sign the contract we were given a 10 minute window as the lady who dealt with us had to go to a viewing and we were rushed and made to feel that we were are a nuisance to them. We did not have time to ask questions and were rushed out of the office. They did NOT put our deposit in a government protection scheme and did not provide a certificate which meant having to approach citizens advice towards the end of the tenancy. AVOID! Also came last in the Rate Your Landlord Survey with substandard services. Not worth the risk going with them.

I rented a very high quality fully furbished studio flat from Homelets two years ago. Before I decided to take the flat, the agent who I was communicating with was putting pressure on me convincing me to rent the flat. Other than that, I found the agent quite helpful and understanding. I managed to reduce the rent to £50 less per month as I found inconsistency of the prices between two of the websites where the flat was advertised. In terms of responsiveness to problems, I had mixed experiences. Once, I had issues with the shower and I had to call the agency and they sent someone to fix it two days after I called which I guess is relatively quick. On another occasion, I had problems with my doorbell which would not stop ringing and the whole building could hear it, hence it was very annoying. I called them to send someone urgently but they said the best they can do is in 3-4 days time which was quite unacceptable. When it came to getting my deposit back, they inspected the flat for quite a long time trying to find something to charge me for. However, as it was perfectly clean, they made up that they had to charge me £20 for disinfecting the toilet and bathroom and this was described as “standard procedure”. However, when I moved in, the agency claimed that the flat was professionally cleaned, however after walking for a while with my socks on the “clean” floor, my socks turned black and it has clearly not be cleaned up at all. The kitchen was greasy and the fridge was equally filthy. Otherwise, I would overall claim my experience as positive with a few exceptions as mentioned above. Best advice I can give you is to always try to reduce the price of the rent and to ask for student discount on your agency fees. Also, don’t let yourself be pressured by any agents.

Slow to respond to damp issues on the bottom floor. letting agency organized a viewing without us knowing which was not ideal. The House is run down for the rent I’m paying. slugs in the downstairs living room. overall I’m not staying with this agency next year due to repeated problems and slow responses to issues in the house.

Many appliances in the house are broken. Requested they are fixed on many occasions, however they are still fault after 4 months. Poor communication and service overall.

This is the second year I am renting with Homelets, and my general experience with the agency has been better this year compared to last year. The state of the house this year is a lot better than the state of the house last year. The general quality of the house is okay, and the size of the house is very satisfactory. Also on one occasion the agency arranged a meeting that was meant to be held at our house to discuss some issues with the house, but they ended up not showing up at all. When explaining the contract it was done quickly and in a robotic fashion and you got the impression that they weren’t interested in going into too much detail. I wasn’t left with a very clear understanding of what my responsibility as a tenant was. The general management of the house (the land lord) has been very good at sorting out smaller problems when needed, this was however not the case last year. The bigger problems that the agency has been responsible for has not always been dealt with. There are two kitchens in the house and the oven in the top kitchen, though they have been around to try and fix it several times, has not been working for three months.