Updating post from Reddit.
I'm a temporary landlord for my home while traveling. Looking for general advice on dealing with useless property management companies. As expected the property management company are abysmal and in honesty I have been far too soft but I've been trying not to cause issues with the tenant experience.
Two recently indirectly related points:
Ideally since they are so useless I want them to pay for the cost of the dishwasher repair from their own fees since they did not pass on the recommendation from the technician that it needed to be replaced. Appreciate this will almost definitely not happen.
I am also going to try and push back and suggest they try troubleshooting before passing the message to me and incurring costs.
To be honest, I dont think there is much advice, just venting about how useless they are.
They are useless, but as you’re out of the courtly you don’t have much choice. The HMRC requires you have an agent or your tenant is required to without a percentage of you rent and deposit directly to them. Having agent removes this requirement and they should have had you do the withholding waiver for HMRC if they are not passing withholding to HMRC.
You could complain and get fees back, more likely have to go through the agents ombudsman. You have no chance of getting them to pay for dishwasher unless they are feeling generous.
If the dishwasher is more than 3yrs old, replace with a more economical one.
Hot water is dynamic of the house as long as they have hot water then they’ll just have to cope. You only need to be sure the boiler heat water to reasonable temperature and the shower output is not cold.
Most are useless and you will be wasting effort chasing for them to pay for the dishwasher as they were never liable for it to be replaced to start with. You might be able to chase money back for the shoddy service as they clearly are not managing your property I would probably seek that as your best solution to getting anything.
Thanks, I appreciate I won't get anything from them but want to make them work a bit now that they are so useless. Any advice on getting them to pay for the poor service?
Like I said the only chance you have is to go through the complaint process and raise it with their redress scheme. You might be able to go for money back for poor service and potentially allow you to break out of the contract with them. You won't get much more performance from a management agent that is already crap.
You can give notice and get a replacement - not all property managers are equal. Most management contracts have three months notice. Use someone properly registered though - a lot of these are not. Also someone with a portal if you’re out of the country. Makes comms easier. I used [email protected] and they took over straight away and didn’t charge me during my notice period.