Grant Management – Landlords to Avoid

134 Responses

• 

  Anthony | October 20th, 2008 @ 5:33 pm

  Found this searching for “beverly burness grant management”. Email was bouncing as I can’t spell properly.

  Having problems with them too. No hot water or heating for three weeks, and severe damp problems. Can’t get in touch with them either, but I managed to prise Beverley’s email/phone number out of them, so hopefully will be sorted soon.

  I totally agree: private housing companies are usually complete arse-holes, but these guys take the piss. As soon as our ridiculous, one-sided joke of a contract is up I’m never dealing with them again.

  Best of luck with them. Regards from Liverpool.
• 

  Chris | October 20th, 2008 @ 5:40 pm

  Hi Anthony,

  Thanks for stopping by. Sorry to hear your having just as bad an experience with them as we did. At the moment we’re waiting on our deposit being returned to us, and when it does I’m going to be going out of my way to never use them again.

  Good luck with getting everything sorted out. Here’s hoping Beverley can get something done, although I haven’t heard anything from her regarding that letter.
• 

  Ewan | October 22nd, 2008 @ 12:26 pm

  Haha, fantastic, I stumbled across this page whilst trying to dig out a contact number for the elusive Beverley.

  We moved into a property in Glasgow over two months ago, and have been beset with a host of problems from the offset. The falt was in a disgusting state of cleanliness and repair; refuse at both doors, a rodent infestation, damp and mould throughout and the crowning glory, a massive hole in the floor caused by dry rot. To date, not all the repairs have been done and we’re living in a flat that still isn’t acceptable.

  We’ve called and written numerous times to no avail. The only correspondance we’ve recieved so far was a letter telling us to clean our windows! They’ve clearly broken the terms of the lease on numerous occasions and I am angry to say the least.

  They are a complete joke of a company, steer clear.
• 

  Chris | October 22nd, 2008 @ 12:36 pm

  Ewan that sounds crazy. I would say I can’t believe they haven’t fixed everything, but that would be a lie because I can believe they’d be that shit.
• 

  mike | October 30th, 2008 @ 11:24 pm

  Grant managment ar a bunch of scoundrels!
  My son shared a house rented from them in Liverpool. Firstly they got the boys to sign up to a 2 year tenancy agreement that finished in the September (the boys uni term finished in the July) The house became riddled with mould growth behind furniture,it took a complaint from Envoironmental Health (who classed the problem as a grade 1 health risk) to get them to take action.
  At the end of the tenancy they took 2 months to send a statement that showed that 1 months rent times 4 tenants was due. This was incorrect and their excuse was that they had entered ‘negative’ payments into their system when in fact they were ‘positive payments’ They charged £140 for cleaning, when the boys moved out even though their agent had passed the property as acceptable and, to cap it all, charged £100 for administation of the cleaning. It took several letters and weeks of unanswered phone calls culminating in a call to ask for their CEO did the matter become resolved.
  If the tenants had been less determined or even worse overseas students trying to get their money back, GM would undoubtedly have pocketed £1200.00!
• 

  Chris | November 2nd, 2008 @ 11:21 pm

  Hi Mike,

  I’m left completely speechless by that. I knew they were bad and I’ve heard other horror stories by people here, and from around Edinburgh, but that has to be the worst thing I’ve heard. The simple fact that it was a grade 1 health risk would have been bad enough, but for them to then try to take all that extra money shows a complete lack of morals.

  There also seems to be a rather alarming number of people complaining of mould or damp in their flats. We had it in ours towards the end of our lease, and every other comment here has mentioned it too.

  We were fortunate that because we wrote a couple of letters of complaint (the one above, and another by my flatmate for the time they took £350 out of his account without permission), and I was on the phone to them almost every day, that we got our full deposit back. I’ve found the best way to deal with them is to get one persons name, then when you call up their main number, go to the reception and as for that person specifically. By the end of the week I think the woman I spoke to dreaded my call so she got the payment through as quickly as possible so she wouldn’t have to speak to me again.

  In the end we have all our money back and I will never go near them again, I recommend the same to every person I know is looking for a rented flat.

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• 

  Lewis | November 11th, 2008 @ 5:22 pm

  Hey I am having a lot of problems too. From the move in day, everything was filthy, there was a leak, we had no doors on the garage, no lock for the back door, no lock for the patio door, blocked downstairs toilet, damp problems, the garden opens onto an alleway and there is no gate/door. We have rang and complained many times, also in writing. They are often rude and eager to get you off the phone. The conversation usually ends in ‘can I take your number, we will get someone out to you right away’. Nothing ever happens though. They always manage to get hold of us to try and get money from us no problem though. I am totally frustrated and fed up and really don’t know what to do. They are clearly breaching their own contract – so who can I report them to>?

  For you guys who have finished with them, what was the best course of action?

  For you guys who havn’t signed up with them – DON’T DO IT.

  They are useless, greedy selfish fuckers.
• 

  Chris | November 12th, 2008 @ 12:53 pm

  Hi Lewis,

  Your situation sounds completely infuriating, more so than mine anyway.

  What I would suggest is the way I handled them. I called up the main number, don’t hit any of the options they give you. Wait on the receptionist picking up.

  This is the important part. Be very friendly, and calm throughout the entire phone conversation with whoever you speak to.

  Now once you’re on with the receptionist, say you have a problem with something in your flat and could they put you through to someone you could speak to about it.

  When they put you through, the first thing you need to do is ask the persons name. Once you have it, write it down, this is important. Then very calmly explain to them exactly what’s wrong with the flat. You have to make sure you don’t get angry with them, at least in this call.

  Now if they don’t get it all sorted or they don’t call you back, call the main number, wait on the receptionist and ask to be put through to the person whose name you’ve written down. Don’t say why you want to speak to them.

  When you get through go through the story again.

  Basically do this every day, and that person will hate you so much by the end of the week they’ll get everything sorted just so they don’t have to speak to you again.

  That’s how I got my entire deposit back. Works a charm.
• 

  Fed Up Tenant | November 19th, 2008 @ 11:13 pm

  Hi Guys

  We have had a number of problems with Grant Management – so many that it has gone from comical to how can a company like that exist :

  1. When we first moved in they gave us 3 sets of key instead of 5 (which they were supposed to give) and asked us to get another 2 sets cut and give them the receipt to reimburse them. That was October 2006 – after numerous telephone conversations we are still waiting for our money.

  2. The inverntory they gave us was the same as the inventory that they gave the last tenants (which kindly left their inventory when they moved out).

  3. When we paid and moved in, there were a number of times where they didn’t inform their other agents and we had people coming round with our agents letting themsleves to view the flat without our consent (and we just moved in!).

  4. We were missing a wardrobe for one of our rooms which we were promised that we would get before we moved it. After several attempts to get one they then turned around and said we weren’t getting one.

  5. It took them ages to fix anything and when they did they did a shoddy job (if that was my flat they were renting I would be furious that they were doing shoddy work to maintain it – the bath seal looked like it was put on physically by hand by a guy with fat fingers).

  6. Even though the rent was paid, we were getting letters saying that we were due them money. After several times going in and showing receipts and told everything was fine, we were still getting the letters. On one occasion they claimed no rent was paid for a month by one of us and unfortunately we had lost the receipt for that month. We then request them to get receipt from their book (as they issue you with the stub to give to the bank) to which they claimed they didn’t have to so I had to threaten them with legal action – next day they rung up and said ‘oh yes we found the book and turns out payment was actually made when we found the receipt number and called the bank’.

  7. On numerous occasions when it came to someone leaving the flat and being replaced, they lost the change of tenant forms, so we filled them out again, and again they lost them – this has happened with four different people moving into our flat!

  8. Our flat got burglared – we called the police then phone Grant Management to get the locks changed – Grant Management refused to do this – we therefore had to source a locksmith ourselves to do this for us.

  9. I have decided to move flat now and found a lovely flat and put in my application through another agent who goes through Leaseguard. This normally takes 2 days. However after phoning my property agent two weeks later they told me Leaseguard was still waiting for a reference from Grant Management – today Grant Management have just informed them they won’t give a reference unless I give them £30 to supply me with a reference!!! This on top of £50 which I am paying them for a change of tenancy!!!!!! I now have 1.5 weeks till I move into my new flat and I now have to take time off work tomorrow to go to Grant Managment and sit at reception until I get my reference and am now stressing – this delay has resulted in us giving viewings for other potential flatmates!!!!!

  10. Have you saw their letting office? Who does their marketing?? They have 40 flats for let – each having the identical photograph!!!!!

  I have decided enough is enough – any person that has been let a flat from Grant Management who I have met or spoken to has had a bad experience with them. How a company can get away from such disorganisation, treatment of their tenants, etc etc is disgusting. I feel that as a customer who spends money you expect quality of product and service and quite frankly they don’t provide either. From meetings I have had with them in the past – they expressed how they wanted to be a better company to both their tenants and investors – they have failed in the past on both fronts and continue to fail. The only person who worked well in that company was a lady called Eva Mendes who was efficient, organised, and gave the best quality service to her tenants. Sadly she was made redundant 6 months ago … I wonder why…

  I was quite at the end of my tether tonight and have decided to get a petition together of people who have dealt with GM in the past and people who are tenants/investors who are having problems with them now and sending this through to BBC’s Watch Dog. Any helpers??
• 

  P | November 29th, 2008 @ 3:06 pm

  I would reccomend that you all submit your stories to BBC Watchdog because if enough stories are sent in they should feature Grant Management on their program:

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/gotastory/

  There was a group on Facebook trying to get people to do this aswell and a good number of people posted their complaints but it was shutdown, perhaps due to complaints from Grant Management.

  There really is a shocking amount of people who seem to be having problems with Grant Management though so please help spread the word and raise awareness through Watchdog so that GM change the way they do business.
• 

  Chris | December 1st, 2008 @ 4:51 pm

  Fed Up Tenant: That is one long list of issues you had with them. From your, and all the other comments, it appears I got off quite lightly. They hit me with the £30 leaving reference too, and I went crazy at them over the phone. They say they are aware of their reputation and are trying to improve it, but I’ve yet to see any evidence whatsoever of that.

  P: I hadn’t heard about the Facebook group. I would have joined it if I’d known.

  I do think that reporting them to BBC’s Watch Dog may be a good idea to get someone to take a long hard look at them. The simple fact that so many people have come here to share their issues, or emailed me, means that something really needs to be done. If anyone has submitted this to Watch Dog let me know. Otherwise I might just do it myself.
• 

  P | December 3rd, 2008 @ 10:04 am

  I reckon the best thing to do is everyone individually post their complaints to Watchdog so that they are getting a constant stream of people complaining about Grant Management.

  This will show how annoyed people are and hopefully get their Watchdogs attention

  Its really quick to fill out: http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/gotastory/
• 

  Adam | December 4th, 2008 @ 2:38 am

  Ooo am i happy i found this!!!

  I’ve out stupid amounts of problems with grant management and the same Ms Burness seems to sound very familier!!!

  Heres how my situation goes trying to keep it short…

  Signed my contract in march… they then failed to give me a copy of my TDS certificate (breach one)

  a week before moving in they give me a call asking if i’m flexi with dates, i reply no… Guess what? They double booked us!

  They offered us alternative accommodation for the period of time (no compensation, no reduction in rent, no offer to help with transport, no internet, smaller house and in a dodgier area) and because it was inconvenient, poorer housing, i didn’t feel safe in the area and the other guys didn’t want it i was a bit stuffed. Had to put all my stuff in storage costing me quite a bit where GM didn’t want to offer me compensation. They also wanted me to move into the actual house i was supposed to move into on 14th august on 30th august yet i was on holiday. They wanted me to pay the extra rent but i refused to pay considering i wasn’t going to be there!

  Anyhow because of this i had big arguments with the people i was supposed to live with which would have made living there really bad. GM then behind our back without signing a new lease or asking any of us changed the TDS certificate with regards to the dates on the contract AND the names of two of the tenants (as there was a swap around). I didn’t sign a contract but so the guys could move in to shut them up i paid first months rent yet have never stepped foot into the property.

  (still no compensation offered)
  Anyhow i started to seek legal advice which I had a good case. Numerous phone calls were exchanged with Ms Burness but as you lot probably know we were going around in big stupid circles not getting anywhere! Anyhow on 9th/10th September we sent two faxes and two letters… a few weeks later we hadn’t received a reply and my lawyer couldn’t get through. I eventually got through and asked if they had received our faxes/letters which i ssent to number X they said “Nope we haven’t received anything but if you sent it to that number thats our telephone number” anyhow i went and called my lawyer up and he said he got the details off there site under the specific sections. Anyhow i called grant management up and asked them for there fax number… guess what?! they gave me number X again! so i asked them what number was it as another women told me one thing and now your telling me this…. Anyhow they somehow still hadn’t received the faxes, 3 faxes later and guess what? The initial faxes arrive out of no where!

  Anyhow GM requested i paid the rent despite my lawyer told them i’m not going to and told them to stop calling me. Every day i was receiving phone calls from this stupid, rude Scottish person (harassment style) until i eventually basically told him to never call me or my mum (guarantor again) as he wouldn’t leave us alone. He somehow never knew about the lawyers letters and didn’t know anything which we told beverly somehow?

  Anyhow on the contract it clearly states that if someone drops out then the other tenants are liable to find someone else and pay the rent. GM have completely forgotten what was written in their own contracts.

  *Note i still haven’t signed a contract with the change in dates/change in tenannts nor verbally or anything of the kind agreed to what they were doing*

  More phone calls and my lawyer still wasn’t getting anywhere, their law team was demanding i pay the rent and all this rubbish. Anyhow he couldn’t get through to them, they would pick up or anything of the such so we wrote a nice letter to the TDS people to try and get my damage deposit back which is processing at the moment but apparently they kept calling the house to get them to pay the rent, they’ve refused and now APPARENTLY GM told the house to sue me so i have the pay the rent? (don’t understand how that works out) and apparently GM are going to sue me?

  I’ll be on the phone to the TDS tomorrow morning AND to my Lawyer!!!

  I could go on for years but i’ll keep checking the link to carry on the gossip about my situation….

  Situation for my mates… in one house they got burgled…. it took GM 1 week to come and fix the window which was smashed and police boarded up. Then the Enviromental health house people came around to the house and looked at it. Classed it as a class A house (e.g. houses are grouped from A-J (J being the best)) so they’re suing as well!

  BIG BIG TIP!

  Contact the TDS if you haven’t received a copy of your TDS certificate AND if you’ve got “fire doors” well what GM call fire doors in your house yet when you open them fully and let them go they don’t fully shut on their own, or theres gaps above it or below it etc then contact your local fire station inspector, He’ll come around and for every problem they find in breach of the fire saftey GM get fined £2k per item! (friends fire door doesn’t shut fully and also theres gaps between the top and bottom!)

  I could go on for years and sorry if theres mistakes above if you need re-clarification just ask!
• 

  Alexandria Brown | December 11th, 2008 @ 9:30 pm

  Hey everyone, I’m glad I’ve found something like this, I just complained at the edinburgh directory of grant management, try to find it yourselves and leave another comment – try and get as many up there as possible. We’ve had so many problems since we moved in 4 months ago – our plumbing doesn’t work properly causing water to flow through from kitchen appliances and come up the shower. It causes a disgusting eggy/fishy smell which caused a contractor, who came to see the problem, to throw up. It has been SEEN by four plumbers, yet still not FIXED.

  Two of the bedroom windows don’t shut properly which is illegal, as the property isn’t wind tight. We have informend them of all the problems in the flat a literal dozen times (i’m keeping count!) by phone, and twice in writing – once in the inventory and once thorugh an offical letter of complaint.

  When we pointed out about the inventory containing all these problems, they informed us that the repairs dept didnt receive it, it just got put into our file. Even though we had been asked to fill it out and write anything on it that needed fixed.

  My guarantor is the one who write the offical letter of complaint since they didn’t seem to be listening to us – it is yet to be responded to. It was sent over a month ago. When we poined out the complaints were in writing, they apologised and said “We haven’t opened our mail in a few weeks” – they just leave it to sit there. I was asked to send a copy of the letter to their email address, which I asked my Grandpa (my guarantor) to do, and he did. Still waiting on a response.

  Our very dark outer hallway has no security lights, which has cuased all of us to trip on the concrete stairs at least once each.

  Every time we phone GM, it tales approx 15 mins to get through, and I have been hung up on three times when they have answered the phone then realised they’ve picked up the wrong line. I have been spoken to in ways that I didn’t realise people who worked with the public were allowed to speak if they wanted to keep their jobs! The staff are never helpful, and as Lewis said, all we get is a ” Can I take your number, we’ll get back to you today or tomorrow at the latest.” This actually happened to me yesterday – i phoned about the windows again, and they said that – I’m still wAIting. They have never “got back to me” I have always had to chase them up, to no avail.

  I am particulalry complaining about the Edinburgh and Glasgow offices – because we’re in Stirling, both offices seem to deal with our property, it’s never been clear who exactly deals with us. You would think that two offices dealing with us would mean we’d get somewhere – but nup! I wouldnt recommend Grant Maagement to anyone up here, and after reading this thread, I’d never recommened them even if it wasn’t in Glasgow or Edinburgh. It seems to be an overall shoddy and ridiculous excuse for a company.
• 

  Adam | December 17th, 2008 @ 5:58 pm

  Hello Alexandra… It all sounds really familiar… I’m in Bristol and I’m dealing with the idiots up in glasgow/edingborough. Rude and bascially everything you explain. A letter of complaint won’t get you anywhere trust me!
• 

  Chris | December 18th, 2008 @ 3:26 pm

  I know how bad they are but I’m continually shocked by the number of people that have had similar issues with them.

  Adam: I’m loving the tip about contacting the TDS. It seems the only way they will ever get themselves together is if it starts impacting them financially.
• 

  Heather | December 19th, 2008 @ 2:00 pm

  Hi Everyone,

  I was seaching for any news articles on Grant Management. We have just had to move out of our flat yesterday.

  I want to campaign against Grant Management because I simply won’t let them get away with all the hassle and trauma they have caused us in the past 4 months.

  We have to let others know not to rent from them because they are a bunch of incompetent b^”%*s, all they want to do is make money from poor unsuspecting people and take advantage of the fact that people can’t be bothered fighting.

  Heather
• 

  Carolyn | December 26th, 2008 @ 11:14 pm

  Hi everyone, 3 other students and I rented a flat from this bunch last year, and all I can say is thank goodness our lease was only for a year, I couldn’t get out of the place quick enough.
  The complaints listed above are very familiar. The day we were due to move in, we were told GM had lost the keys. A guy came round and we stood and watched while he BROKE IN. Unbelievable.
  They left us without heating and hot water for 5 months despite continuous complaints to them and the citizens advice bureau, even they couldn’t get them shifted. I agree with previous posts, the only way to get through to them is to phone them every single day.
  Our deposit took two months to return after we had moved out. They claimed they had returned it when thay had not. The Landlord Registration Office were contacted and they finally got it sorted out. Even they had a bit of trouble.
  If you ever have problems getting your deposit back, contact the Landlord Registration Office at your local council, they are able to sort it out properly, and your complaints are taken seriously there because they have the power to strike them off the register.
  I feel very strongly about this joke of a company, and I will never, ever rent from them again, and also strongly discourage others from doing so.
• 

  P | December 29th, 2008 @ 5:28 pm

  Has anyone else sent their story to Watchdog yet?

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/gotastory/
• 

  Adam | December 31st, 2008 @ 3:57 am

  Carolyn sounds like we’re all in the same boat… sounds familiar to other friends situations. My hatred for this company is very strong and i would love to put them out of business. There was a facebook group but i believe it got shut down or something similar? (as in very recently)
• 

  Mary | January 8th, 2009 @ 5:49 pm

  I just stumbled across this website and its made me very worried as i have just signed a contract for a house in newcastle with these people!
• 

  Chris | January 9th, 2009 @ 2:19 pm

  Mary - Be very, very careful with them. I would make sure you photograph EVERYTHING when you move in, or video it if you prefer. Make sure that you cover yourself every single step of the way with them.

  If you do fall into any problems with them, there have been some very good suggestions in these comments on how to try to get things resolved.
• 

  Adam | January 14th, 2009 @ 4:30 pm

  Ouch mary…. don’t pay the damage deposit? Just don’t pay anything and then they’ll tell you to hurry up or they’ll re-lease the house… Let them!

  Also once you’ve all given the money in make sure you receive a copy of where your money is deposited otherwise sue them!
• 

  Adam | January 19th, 2009 @ 12:21 pm

  http://www.facebook.com/wall.php?id=594825491&banter_id=505893634&show_all#/group.php?gid=42160544483&ref=mf
• 

  George | January 21st, 2009 @ 9:30 pm

  Hey all,

  We’re having several issues with Grant Management here in Bristol.

  We’re living in the house that the Adam above backed out of and it seems he made the right choice. But we didn’t really have a choice as we needed a place to stay. We were forced into a corner.

  They’re breaching leases left right and centre.

  I’ve sent so many e-mails and letters so similar to the one mentioned that it’s unreal. And to no avail as of yet! Most go ignored, even when sent to David Farmer Director of Sales!

  I’ve dealt with Carol-Ann, Beverley, Louise, Vikki to name a few. And no success.

  For those of you who are on Facebook, search Grant Management in groups and sign up. There are plans in the works to all send our complaints to watchdog and hopefully get them a bit of an investigation.

  Their service is shoddy and it annoys me how they preach everywhere that their customers are the most important.

  And indeed, they told us to sue our former house-mate? Regardless of any thing which happened between us and Adam (we’re left with outstanding rent of £1700 to date, which will rise to just under £4000 by the time we end our lease – not a great situation to be in), we wouldn’t sue.

  We’re trying every angle. Included trying to come to a mutual agreement with them that we pay the back-dated rent, but the rent is then reduced for us per month. The house is not worth what we pay, we have several, several issues which need to be sorted including several reasonably expensive repairs, we’ve threatened with watchdog and god knows what else. And yet nothing.

  I warned them that I would get their advertising contract ended with our university and I have done so. They’re representatives are meeting with our Student Union at the end of the month and I have provided several testamonials and offered the advice that the Uni get as long shot of Grant Management as possible.

  Afterall, if it’s too late to help us, at least we can stop future people from making the same mistakes.

  Advise everyone who’s come to see the house to avoid.

  Join up with the FB group and we’ll try and get something sorted.

  In case Grant Management do their research and find this: The above is not slanderous, it’s a personal opinion.

  Fuckers!
• 

  George | January 21st, 2009 @ 9:31 pm

  (And it’s factual)
• 

  Chris | January 22nd, 2009 @ 12:10 am

  I was going to say I’m surprised by the number of issues you’ve all mentioned, but then I remember who we’re talking about and it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.

  George: I fully agree with you about stopping anyone you know who is looking for a place to rent from using them. I had a few friends move recently and I made them promise me they wouldn’t even consider looking at any flats GM rented. Please comment again after your Student Union Representatives have met them to let us all know what happens.
• 

  George | January 22nd, 2009 @ 2:28 pm

  I have been in touch with our Student Paper and am hoping for a bit of bad publicity for Grant Management. Will let you know how it goes.

  Also might notify local papers too.

  Just waiting to hear back!

  Would advise any other universities / colleges / what-not do the same, to stop this happening to anyone else in the future.
• 

  Tom | January 22nd, 2009 @ 10:27 pm

  Oh how I agree. If I were asked to define “incompetent”, I would definitely answer “Grant Management”.

  We’ve had various problems with Grant Mis-management.

  Moving into the flat in September, as a change of tenancy. Was told in the office that a £50 admin fee was payable – by a salesdroid right in front of a sign saying “NO ADMIN FEES”.

  Since then they have still not produced a lease, first they spelt a tenants name wrong, then they put the wrong guarantors down, then they spelt a tenants address incorrectly!

  Meanwhile, things get reported for repair and nothing done. Windows are naff, they sent out the handyman who put sticky back draught excluders on. Which, being sticky backed and on a grubby painted surface, fell off. Phoned up again and they said they’d send him out again, and then rang back to say we’d been vandalising the property! Only when we spoke to the handyman did we find out that actually he couldn’t get into the property the second time as he had been given the wrong keys!

  One of the doors is cracking off its hinges – reported many times – nowt done about it.

  Smoke alarms didn’t go off when smoke filled the property – electrician arrived with a “toolkit” which comprised…. a screwdriver! Had to borrow a stepladder and a mop handle from us…

  Their communication between departments is appalling, they will blame each other and say it’s someone else’s fault.

  The service outwith hours is horrendous, an ansaphone, what use is that to anyone if your lock has broken, window been smashed etc.

  The tips I can recommend for others are:

  - go in person to their offices, they are relatively central – for those who don’t know they are on Coates Crescent, off Shandwick Place, near Haymarket.
  - sit in their reception until you get to speak to someone
  - get the name of EVERY person you speak to and write it down with a breif note on the conversation. That way if you get told there’s no record of your conversation you can produce one for them!
  - harass them daily. Ring up, keep reporting things over and over, and demand that they get fixed
  - quote parts of the lease where relevant – it shows you have half a clue and won’t be bullshitted
  - for serious things get onto your council – it is amazing how quickly a word from them can change things
• 

  George | January 23rd, 2009 @ 11:40 am

  News coming shortly about the University Article! Heard back from editors today.. looking good.
• 

  George | January 23rd, 2009 @ 12:25 pm

  Managed to get the article.

  Do me a favour?

  Can any of you still living in your houses take pictures of ANY problems you have and either post them up on the Facebook group or somewhere, or email them through to gbateman21@hotmail.co.uk, telling me which city you live in.

  Will be good to reference people from other cities and other houses with same problems.

  Thanks!
• 

  George | January 27th, 2009 @ 5:35 pm

  Facebook group shut down!
  They’ve been e-mailed asking why but no reply just yet.
• 

  Eilidh | February 1st, 2009 @ 12:10 am

  Hi

  I was in a very similar situation to most of you. We moved out in September, thank goodness!

  It was a nightmare! Only given 3 keys when should of been given 4 had to get them cut ourselves. Moved in and it hadn’t been cleaned since the builders left. Radiators didn’t work, boiler didn’t work, mud in our water, vents painted over which resulted in mould apparently we breathe too heavily or so we were told! Toilet didn’t flush properly, door frame came away from the wall taking plaster with it, and Kitchen cupboard doors fell off. They let themselves into the flat, some man just walked into my flat mate’s room when she was in bed! The list goes on.

  Unfortunately we had signed a 2 year lease being naive student, after a lot of work and getting a solicitor involved I managed to get us out a year early.

  Up in Dundee where I am Grant Management have been blacklisted by Dundee
  University!

  Are people sending their stories to watchdog?
• 

  Adam | February 5th, 2009 @ 3:46 pm

  Grr…. Every other day I’m getting stupid phone calls off these bastards asking to view the property.

  Every day i tell them that i don’t live at the stupid place and to stop pestering me and the reply i get is… “o we’re sorry… Our systems changed two weeks ago.”
  They’ve called me as late as 21.30!

  What a pile of shit then i had someone who was apparently higher up call me to resolve the matter. They didn’t understand the fact that i was at work, couldn’t call and expect me to call them back…. I don’t think so!

  In the quick call she also said that i can’t leave the contract blah blah blah despite from their solicitors i’ve got it in writing saying im a free man. There is no communication in the company what so ever and none of them seem to realize i never actually moved into the property!

  With regards to George’s comment

  “And indeed, they told us to sue our former house-mate?”

  They did it so financially they wouldn’t be in any form of loss and to try and take it off their backs!
  When my lawyer received information from GM’s solicitors that they wanted to take me to court, they referred to certain case law regarding the situation however the case law they sent my lawyer was completely irrelevant to the actual situation. When my lawyer wrote back to them to explain this, he received a phone call from their solicitors and it appeared that GM hadn’t told the whole story to their solicitors! Later that week i received my damage deposit back and a letter saying im free!

  We’re all students… We’re not rich but before xmas because of the shit that they put us through i’d lost a pile of mates and was basically maxing my overdraft out… (1250).

  Despite I’m free they still annoy me and would do anything to see the company suffer. Putting my differences aside with people such as George… to see the company suffer i’d do anything!
• 

  Chris L | February 5th, 2009 @ 8:57 pm

  I cannot agree more they are one of the worst letting agents i have every came into contact with, i do not have the time to explain the numerous problems I and my friends have had with them, best advice avoid their un habitable holes at all cost!!!!!!!!!!!
• 

  Toby | February 12th, 2009 @ 10:10 pm

  I was told by the people in the flat above us that one of the tenants before us killed himself by jumping into the Tay. I don’t know if it was anything to do with Grant Management but I can’t think that his poor living conditions helped any. I personally am trying to claim back £290 that they took off me after they claimed I hadn’t paid rent, even though I had. As soon any of us owes any money we are called all the time and any correspondance answered almost immdiately, yet despite having a direct number and email address for someone in the credit department I have been completely ignored around anything regarding getting my money back. The main cause of the problem seems to be the complete lack of communication between any of the departments; it certainly appears that anyone you phone will not take any notes or records or attempt to pass any messages to anyone responsible. As said before constant phonecalls to the same person is the only way to get anything done. Part of the problem could be that they’re growing too big for themselves to cope with. According to their website they have almost 2000 properties around the UK, yet just over 100 staff. If all of these tenants are asking for repairs and other inquireis at once it’s quite possible that a lot are just getting burried and ignored.

  I’m not sure the Watchdog campaign will achieve much, we’ve all seen the show (is there a record of all the companies featured so we can whether they’re in it yet?) and nothing really happens except the company releases a statement saying they’ll improve and then nothing. Complaining to councils would seem like a better idea. It’s unfortunate that they’ve already found new tennants for this flat for next year, if I’d known what they were like when they were showing people around I would have intentionaly stayed in and warned every prospective customer in an attempt to make the property unlettable. Their Dundee office is right around the corner from our flat, so next time I come home at night with a bit of drink in me I’ll take my anger out there. I’m thinking a heavy egging, anyone have any requests?
• 

  Samantha | February 13th, 2009 @ 7:17 pm

  Me and two friends rented a property from GM in Dundee last year – originally they told us they had an HMO licence for the property, but after we’d signed the lease and two days before we moved in, they told us they hadn’t got one yet. This left one of our flatmates homeless, and they refused to give her back her deposit until we threatened to contact the local newspaper. When we moved into the property it was filthy and the first time we tried to use the washing machine it soaked the close and the flat downstairs. The fridge was faulty and none of the lights worked. They also sent people round to our house without giving us warning (although they claimed they’d sent a letter – how convenient we’d never received it) – on two occasions men walked right into the flat without so much as buzzing or knocking on the door. I contacted them by letter a few times (never got a reply) and also by phone (messages left but calls never returned). Even though we gutted the place when we moved out they still took our whole deposit for cleaning and ‘damages’ (ripped lino in the kitchen caused by their workman who’d come to fix the washing machine!). They are without a doubt the worst landlords I’ve ever had – report them to watchdog, and avoid renting them at all costs – their flats are overpriced and their customer service is bloody terrible.
• 

  George | February 17th, 2009 @ 7:07 pm

  You all get the GM newsletter about how they’re setting up regional departments to better deal with problems?

  Fat chance it’ll make anything better for the tenant experience.

  The newspaper I mentioned above came out today! Front page! Will maybe type a transcript up and post it on here when I get a mo.
• 

  alice | February 22nd, 2009 @ 12:59 pm

  Rang the NEW IMRPOVED service on tuesday. My area has been bunched together with three other places, I was then asked – after giving my adress – which area i was from.
  The lady on the phone stated that the problem was URGENT, and repeated this word 3 times, and said she would ring back in half an hour.
  Four days later, having not heard anything. I ring GM, they tell I have to ring the contractors, and were completely unconcerned with the fact nothing had been done.

  yea, don’t hold out guys on the improved service. It’s just smokes and mirrors after my uni said they would not let GM advertise unless they improved….yeap as all my housemates and I knew its all just a load of rubbish.
• 

  alice | February 22nd, 2009 @ 1:08 pm

  p.s. just realised that ur from UWE george, thanks for writing that article, like someone else said i would do anything to see GM in the shit.
  You’re a legend, as well as Dom.
• 

  Chris | February 22nd, 2009 @ 1:13 pm

  George: If you get a chance to type up that transcript I’d love to read it, and would be very happy for you to post it up here.
• 

  George | February 24th, 2009 @ 11:25 am

  Thanks for kind words Alice!

  Right, the transcript is to follow:

  “SU REFUSE TO BE TAKEN FOR GRANTED”

  The Students Union have agreed to suspend any advertising of letting agent Grant Management, following a meeting last month.

  Based in Scotland, Grant Management has student properties across the UK and has recently come under fire from UWE students unhappy with their level of customer service.

  A senior Sales Director flew down from Edinburgh to attend the meeting on the 28th January, with SU represenatives, SRC President Dom Passfield and Advice Centre Manager Clare Clark, Manager of UWE’s Accommodation Services and the Business Manager for Grant Management.

  Since the start of the academic year, the Advice Centre has seen a rise in accommodation complaints. While problems with accommodation are normal within any student population, Grant Management have become such a concern that Advice Centre manager Clare Clark began liaising with a Bristol representivie for th company last term.

  “Accommodation is an issue with students every year” says Clare, “but because of the number of problems we were starting to recieve from students who rent with Grant Management, it became apparent that there were a number of issues going on. Students feel that they follow what Grant Management say and what thep rocess should be, i.e. contact the Tenant Help Desk, but nothing happens, and so the issues they have carry on going”.

  Continues on Page 3. (That was front page!!)

  These ongoing problems include leaving houses in disrepair, failing to respond to call-outs and entering the properties without giving tenants any prior warning. Second year Games Technology Student George Bateman has had such a bad experience with Grant Management that he is part of a growing online community venting their feelings about the company and actively encouraging students not to rent from them.

  The second term is usually when students start to look for new student accommodation, with some already having signed contracts and paid deposits by the start of February. Bateman is eager to prevent students from making the mistakes that he did when considering who to rent from. “Grant Management are the perfect example of a fair weather frien. They were helpful and accommodating right up until we signed the lease – they they just vanished. It has taken months to get anything sorted. I’m doing everything possible to make sure future tenants do not fall into the same trap we did. My advice would be; don’t be fooled by overall aesthetics, look at the details and ask lots of questions”

  Sadly, problems with Grant Management are not limited to bristol. Students across England and Scotland have been dissatisfied with their level in service, in particular how long it takes for contractors or reps to come out to repair properties. Daniel Emleton, a second year student from Manchester Uni is just one of many students feeling cheated by Grant Management’s on going lack of customer service, “I definately feel cheated by the way Grant Management organised the viewings and signing the house – it made them seem like a weel run company”

  Grant Management was set up in 1997 by husband and wife Peter and Colette Grant. With over 130 staff, it is still owned and managed by it’s founders, with HBOS PLC having taken a 20% stake in January 2006. The husband and wife team still take an active role within the organisation. On the company website Grant Management come across as well organised and friendly. “Our core value is a simpe one: we put our customers at the heart of our organisation, growing through referals and word of mouth. After all there’s no better endorsement for your company than a happy customer.”

  This value seems to slip by the wayside after tenants sign a contract. Second year Film Studies student Alison Whitmore became angry at the lack of local help available when her property fell into disrepair. “They are extremely hard to get hold of, and then once you finally do, it takes them days if not weeks to respond to the problems. Their main offices are in Edinburgh and they did not give us local contacts to report any urgent problems.”

  A main source of anger for the Students is the Tenant Help Desk, a centralised call centre basied in Scotland where all problems or request for repairs need to be made. Problems students have experience include broken fire doors, windows permanently damaged by condensation and a lack of timely response to properties which have been broken into. Bateman comments, “The repairman who re-paneled our bathroom after a leak threw all the old paneling out on our front patio. He said he would be back to collect it later that day and took a spare key just in case no one was at home. He didn’t come back for 3 months and lost the key, which we will be charged for in our deposit.”

  THis lack of response is a key frustration for students. In automated email responses grant management provide a time scale of how quickly problems will be dealt with. The time scale ranges from a same day 02 24 hour response for uregent problems (heating, hot water, security) to 7-14 days for gardening, minor repairs and furniture. Despite this, one student house that was broken into was left for nearly a week before contractors came out to fix the broken window, a sure risk to the security of the house and tenants.

  In the meeting, the third of a now monthly arrangement, the company admitted their many faults concerning Grant Management’s approach to communication with tenants. SRC President Dom Passfield commented “We highlighted the problems students were experiencing with their tennant help desk. To their credit Grant Management have got bac kto us with very firm details of how they plan to resolve their problems. The company is now splitting their call desk into regions” These regional teams will be launched on the 16th Feb and are a step forward for the troubled company, though custom will already have been affected by unhappy tenants who rented proper through the company this year. Clare comments “The students that have been affected have had 6 months of this treatment and they can’t get that time back. However good Grant Management are from now, those students will still never live with them again. Those students will tell their friendss and word of mouth does get out there so as a company GM have lost customers in that respect.”

  Grant Management is not the first accommodation provider to come under fire from the SU and Passfield is keen to point out that these meetings will continue so that the SU can monitor the changes within the company. “The decision seems to have sent a strong message to the company, given the reasion we’ve had from its directors. It also means the SU is going what it is supposed to and being responsible. We as the Union would have no problems proactively warning students not to rent with GM if the problem or the organisation of the company got any worse and that was made clear at the meeting: however we’re not at that point yet”

  Times have changed when students would be satisfied with a bad and basic amneities, now we need internet access, car parking, sociable spaces and expect a certain level of quality within our accommodation. It would be easy for students to grow too accustomed to the accommodation UWE provides for first year students, with modern building and facilities, but this desire for affordable and quality of living should not be so hard for students to obtain from their accommodation providers.

  Since the meeting GM have been in contact with the SU regarding future plans. Business Manager Stephen Barton was keen to point out that the company now have an action plan for Bristol, following a range of meetings by Head Office. The plan includes contacting all student tenants in the Bristol area, not just those that they know to have problems, as well as reviewing contracts with suppliers and contractors who service the properties.

  Regional help desks are a step to providing better communication between GM and it’s tenants and the Western Eye will keep you updated of any developments.

  Iff you would like to comment or tell us about your accommodation experiences then contact us at letters@westerneye.net
• 

  George | March 1st, 2009 @ 1:01 pm

  They drive me insane!!
• 

  Richard | March 9th, 2009 @ 2:37 pm

  Hey just been reading what peoples problems have been, your going to love hearing mine.
  Lived in a GM house in the 07/08 academic year but didn’t have any major problems. The tenancy ended in july but while checking my bank account at the weekend (07/03/09) noticed that GM had taken £282.50 from my account but the thing is the house i was staying was £335, house was in filton, whicc as people in bristol know is about £75 over priced.
  Rang my bank and they said there going to refund the money and then claim it off GM, bloke on the phone reckons they must of activated my origional DD again which was signed 2 years ago and can’t be legal surely. Tried contacting GM but no reply to calls or emails.
  I fought i had seen the last of them too!
• 

  Gael | March 13th, 2009 @ 11:29 am

  It’s just getting better and better,

  after having been forced to move out cause they never had any HMO license ( I would advise everyone letting from them to double check that and threaten them to go to court if they dont), they just started again our direct debits this month but believe or not, we moved out in December.

  Official reason: the new computer system started them again… Well I am not that qualified when it comes to computer systems but i dont think i can buy this one…
• 

  Amanda | March 16th, 2009 @ 11:09 am

  Hey there, I found this page randomly, and oh my god, I am shocked! these guys sound like complete dicks!
  I am currently looking for a wee flat in Glasgow with my boyfriend, and I seen a very nice looking flat. When he found out it was grant management, he was raging. Apparently he rented from them when he was a student in Edinburgh and he had all the same problems as you guys;mould, dry rot, unhelpfulness etc.

  Needless to say, we’re giving these guys the complete dingy, not matter how nice their flats look!

  Good luck to everyone who is having problems with these guys, hope it works out and thanks so much for warning others against them.
• 

  Concerned resident | March 17th, 2009 @ 6:54 pm

  There’s a Grant Management rented flat in my stair. A word of warning when organising common repairs if this lot are renting in your block – it will take MONTHS of phone calls, letters and emails to get any money out of them for their share of the bill. Be prepared for the “our computer system has just crashed” when you phone up so that they can get rid of you without responding. I’d also worry if you owned a flat they were renting out for you – they have no idea who’s living there. After being buzzed for months at all times of the night and day by one of the residents every time they wanted in to the stair, I phoned up Grant Management and told them to supply the guy with a set of keys. “It’s got NOTHING to do with us, as the computer says that three girls live in that property”, says the GM representative. “Well, he tells me he’s a resident, he’s been buzzing me for about 3 months, I’ve seen him use a key to the flat door when he gets in and he’s always carrying shopping. Have you ever been round to check who lives there now, as there are no girls around ?”. “There’s no need – our computer says there are three girls, so the problem isn’t ours.” Considering the fact that at least one set of tenants was reported to the police by a neighbour who saw them removing the Ikea furniture from the furnished, rented flat and try and do a runner with it in the back of a van – you’d think GM would be a bit more concerned about reports of illegal tenants, eh ? But no. All that happened was that I was eventually told that the guy was just ‘a friend’ of the girls who was visiting and they ‘apologised’ for him buzzing me and telling me that he lived there.

  Now there are tenants in there who are in and out every 10 minutes at all hours of the night and day, slamming the doors as they go. However, they seem very shy as they won’t answer their door to anyone and jump back in and shut the door if they happen to open it when other residents are in the stair. Not sure what they’re hiding, but another neighbour reports that there are far more than the 3 people living there that the HMO license allows. Ni point trying to speak to GM about that though, as they rely on their computer rather than hard facts.
• 

  Andrew | March 30th, 2009 @ 5:11 pm

  Hey guys,
  I moved into my flat around July last year. Moved in to find it a total shithole and they told us it would be decorated. It was also supposed to have been cleaned, however it wasn’t and had sick on the side of doors cum stains on the sofas, and a used shitty covered condom found under the bed, with gay porn found under the mattress of the same bed. My dad went mental and phoned them with his lawyers, and we took loads and loads of pictures. Someone from GM came round to look, and they redecorated the flat and brought in new sofas. They promised other stuff which still havent been delivered also but we are just going to let it go and then when we move out see if they give us back our FULL deposit and if not then i’m going to the newspapers with our horrific story and pictures and see what happens. Also my dad will sue them if we dont get out deposit back . They have a really really bad reputation and shouldnt be allowed to take advantage of the students who mostly are their customers in Edinburgh.
  Andrew
• 

  Interested | April 13th, 2009 @ 4:09 pm

  Grant Management have over 1840 properties on thier books with an average of 3 tenants per unit…thats 5520 tenants.

  There are 22 tenants complaining above, thats less than 1% with horror stories. Even if you multiplied the 22 tenants by the GM average of 3 per unit it is just over 1% with complaints. Not bad for any company
• 

  Jon | April 22nd, 2009 @ 8:00 pm

  Interested,

  You bring up those statistics however you haven’t considered the following…

  How many of those tenants have come across this group?
  How many complaints have there been previously to Grant Management?
  I’m based in Bristol and i know approx. 5 people in GM houses, and every one of them has something to complain about them with. I was talking to another fellow student when we were discussing accomadation and the first thing he said to me was “WHAT EVER YOU DO, DO NOT GO WITH GRANT MANAGEMENT WE WERE WITH THEM LAST YEAR!”

  We’ll say 1840 properties, over 100 staff on one page, over 130 staff on another, yet when i call they don’t even have 100 staff. No matter how many times i’ve called i’ve only ever spoken to the same 8 people, 2 receptionists, Beverely Burness, a women when Beverly was on holiday and the emergency line,an annoying scottish man, the bristol agent, and a random women who keeps calling me asking if its okay to have viewings at a property that i’d never moved into! Bearing in mind that i’ve called/been contacted many of times The rest of the staff must be maintenance/viewings.

  so excluding the 2 receptionists we’re left with Beverely Burness, another lady and the emergency line, the annoying scottish man, the bristol agent and the random women who keeps asking me for viewings at the property.
  The emergency line told me to speak to Beverely, the lady who took control of Beverely’s job while she was away didn’t do anything useful, the annoying Scottish man didn’t communicate once with Beverely and just annoyed me, the Bristol Agent well she didn’t have a clue what was going on and the other lady who kept asking me for viewings of the property when i didn’t even move in… need i say any more?

  So looking at this from a Bristol prospectus, the only person who could do anything was Beverley
  whether it be good or bad…

  If anyone has come across anyone useful then tell me but 1 person who seems to be the center of 1840 properties? Where is the customer service? There are going to be a lot more complaints than what are listed!
• 

  Mr Smith | April 26th, 2009 @ 1:24 pm

  Every business in the world gets complaints even the biggest and most successful ones. To appear on watchdog you need to be doing a lot worse than Grant Management.

  Even if you multiply these complaints by 5 or even 10 its still a very low percentage.

  I am not too familiar with Grant Management but after just a few quick searches on the internet you can see they are a successful and big player in their sector. So imagine what level of complaints and unhappy customers the smaller companies must be getting.
• 

  Bryan | April 27th, 2009 @ 1:48 pm

  Wow, I’m stunned. I really felt like it was just me that was having a nightmare with Grant Management.
  So many similar stories to mine up there. In fact, I just spent an hour and a half emailing a list of complaints to them, only for the email to bounce back as their complaints email address didn’t work!
  Now that I’ve sent the complaints to them, I’m giving them a few days to return the extra money they took from my bank account, then I’ll have to get in contact with ARLA.

  Will ARLA do much to help me?

  Thanks
  Bryan

  PS, I hope you all get your problems sorted out with this shambolic company.
• 

  Re. INterested and Mr. Smith | April 30th, 2009 @ 11:05 am

  Regardless of these 1% statistics, this is not a true representation of the cross section of complaints this company has had, and will receive in the future. I would strongly argue that this site has not been found by many of the tenants of GM houses. I have never met a single GM tenant who has had a good word to say about this company.

  Furthermore, if you don’t believe my hearsay; UWE has actually prevented GM from advertising at their uni and actively advises students not to rent with them. This is due to the sheer volume of complaints received from students at UWE on the poor management and dire conditions of their houses.
• 

  Jon | May 4th, 2009 @ 11:48 am

  I couldn’t agree more Re. INTerested and Mr. Smith with your last comment!
• 

  Joanna | May 4th, 2009 @ 2:56 pm

  Jeez, I didn’t realise it was so wide spread, they are actually freakin awful :O We’ve had like so many, numerous problems with plastering, fire alarms randomly breaking, the bathroom fan working on and off and my personal favourite so far rats. Of which we were told to give it a couple of months and ring back if it was still a problem This was during a period of time that I was already stressed out because my mum had just died, I had coursework to do and i couldn’t sleep at night because of rats scurrying under my bedroom floor boards with its huge gaps. its a joke, then there’s been letters saying some of us owe twenty pence, other times we all owe a months rent, its absolutely ridiculous. Rang up about all the letters in a panic, turns out sometimes “they just get sent out”, god knows what that means, now we don’t know whether to pay heed or not! Not to mentioned phantom payment charges that have now appeared. It really needs to stop, it might be too late for me and my housemates, we’re in 3rd year now. But if I’d known half the problems we’d have. Especially any kind of interaction with that horrible man Arthur Millan their credit adviser. Such a nasty piece of work.

  Shall we all go to Watchdog, I’m not even joking. People need to know what a shit of a company it is. It’s making me angry just thinking about it.
• 

  Simon | May 14th, 2009 @ 3:12 am

  Hi, I just found this site and I’m having similiar problems with GM and I was wondering if anyone has any advice:

  I moved into a GM property in July last year on a year long lease with four other people, we where told at the time that if we wanted to move out before the end of the lease we’d have to advertise our room and find someone to take over the lease. In April this year two people in the flat decided to move out and found people to take their rooms. Then gm decided to let us know that we’re not allowed a change of tenancy in the last 6 months of our lease because it’s a short assured tenancy (I’ve checked this out with with arla and it seems normal), despite the fact theres nothing in the contract about it, gm have never told us until this point and they’ve let other people change tenacy in the last 6 months. Gm suggested we get around this by signing a new lease which would allow the 2 flatmates to move out and the 2 new ones to move in. At the time we where under the immpression that the new lease would run from the start of April until the end of July this year, after which a new lease could be signed for the next year (stupidly I didn’t read the new lease before I signed it). Here’s my problem: I was planning to move out this year cos I’m going abroad, I was planning to go at the start of this month but I haven’t been able to find anyone to take over my lease (unsurprisingly since the flats massively overpriced and gm can’t be bothered to keep it in a reasonable condition) so I decided to just pay the rent until the end of July and go. Now I’ve just found out that the new lease we signed runs from April this year to July 2010. I can’t find anyone to move in by then, I can’t stay here, I can’t afford to continue paying the rent while I’m abroad, I could just move out, close my bank account or find some other way break the lease and just lose my deposit but I think my flatmates will be facedwith having to pay the additional rent for my room.

  Is there any way I can get out of my lease without this happening?

  I honestly can’t beleive gm are allowed to get away with this and I’d apprieciate some advice.
• 

  Adam | May 14th, 2009 @ 3:30 pm

  Hello Simon,

  Have you tried legal aid? I’ve learn’t to read everything from them. Have they informed you who your money has been deposited with? If they haven’t you can automatically claim 3 X the rent + the rent!
  They’ll do anything to try and cheat you! I wrote on some of the online help forums such as consumerdirect or something similar i believe however they said with what i was writing about i didn’t have a case however in the end i won so i don’t listen to them. Try legal aid anyhow.
• 

  Flaminchocolate | May 14th, 2009 @ 5:37 pm

  I have also made a huge mistake by going with GM Manchester.

  From the beginning, when we moved in on 21st June 2008, GM have been extremely disorganised and unhelpful to us.

  When we moved in, we were promised the house was going to be cleaned professionally, and everything would have been ready but when we arrived, there were clear signs of unfinished cleaning such as a large amount of rubbish left in the garden and some essentials missing such as iron and blankets. The room has clearly not been cleaned because my house mate found an empty condom packet under his bed!!
  At this point, we simply moved on as it could have been an easy mistake.

  However, when we had to hand in a list of what was missing or broken, we never heard back from them so when I rang, they informed us that no record was logged. After that, it took us more than half a year just to get a replacement pedal bin. During that half of a year, we had to continually ring up to find out what was going on, and each time, they would tell us that it was never logged and they have sorted out the problem. The situation worsened when our oven glass shattered. When I rang them, they told us they seemed to have problems with this oven glass and that there will a replacement within a week but not surprisingly, they took months to replace those (and us having to ring up over and over again) and during that time, we were unable to use the Grill. They also took so long to get dishwasher and washing machine fixed, sending someone who actually told us he knows nothing about dishwashers. He didn’t even know how to turn it on!

  What I was most angry about is, I paid two months non-guarantor money which meant I should not have been charged for the last two months of the rent. It did not shocked me when they carried on charging me, and I actually rang straight away demanding a refund. The man I spoke to, who shall remain nameless, gave me a wrong email address, and when I rang back, another woman gave me another wrong email address. The refund did not go through, and I spoke to the only decent staff they seemed to have, who informed me that first refund was not even logged. He kept me up-to-date, and he did what he promised to do. I knew the company have been disorganised from the previous experiences, but I was absolutely disgusted that they were being so disorganised when dealing with someone else’s money.

  I just wrote to them demanding reference letters for free of charge. I also linked them to this site stating that they have been giving rubbish service to everyone, and not just us.

  They will probably refuse, if they even get around to responding!

  I wish someone would report them to Watchdog

  Ps. They brought people for viewing without telling us too, and I said I was not informed. She insisted that she spoke to one of is, and we were all in at the time so I asked her who she spoke to. she couldn’t give us a name funnily enough.
• 

  Simon | May 15th, 2009 @ 10:05 pm

  Adam: Have you got any links know anywhere I can find any more information on that?
• 

  George | May 19th, 2009 @ 3:00 pm

  An update on the UWE side of things.

  The SU recently published an article about GM. Which I transcribed up there ^ .

  They said they wouldn’t advertise GM anymore. And yet a couple of months later they sent out an advertising e-mail about GM. I got in touch with the president of the SU who is a good friend of mine and asked what was going.

  It seems GM have redeemed themselves and are apparently a lot better now.

  They have had quicker repair turn arounds but that’s about it.

  We have had a broken door since Monday 11th. Which means we can’t get into one of the bedrooms and it happens to have the boiler in there too. Our boiler often cuts out and we lose hot water. Not to mention the Carbon Monoxide risk. I reported it. Was told 24 hous. Nothing. Friday 15th emailed again. Nothing. Replied Tuesday morning with an e-mail sent to the contractors and CC’ed to me. The Contractor replied saying he had absolutely nothing through about that job.

  Same old GM!

  We’re having the biggest problems with the higher up Staff, which is worrying in any company when the Senior Staff are so ignorant.

  I also second the fact I’ve only ever spoken to perhaps 8-9 members of staff out of the ’100′s’.

  Anyway I digress.

  The student paper approached me again about the SU’s decision to start advertising again and I gave my 2 cents. Should be out soon so will post it up here when it’s out.

  I’m still actively warning people not to rent with GM.

  Less than 2 months here now. Can’t wait!
• 

  Simon | May 22nd, 2009 @ 12:01 am

  I’ve just spent the week trying to out my problems so just for info:

  Edinburghs HMO people have been quite helpful in my situation (0131 469 5628). I tried the ELA ( http://www.edinburghlandlordaccreditation.co.uk/publicpages /complaint.aspx ) as well but even though GM have multiple breaches in their regulations they told me they can’t take any action against them as they’re only an advisory body although they passed my complaints along to the Edinburgh housing ombudsman.

  I’ve also found the rent assesment committee who can possibly force GM to reduce your rent if you’re being ripped off (like me) ( http://www.rpts.gov.uk/about_us/rac.htm )

  It looks like I can get out of my contract without to much trouble due to a few legal technicalities. Even though GM know this and I’ve told them they can just find a new tenant to replace me themselves, I’d be happy to show them around the flat and we could avoid all the the legal stuff they’re still making me go through all the legal nonsense to get it done, which makes me think that they’re either having trouble finding new tenants, the staff are completely inept or they’re just trying to piss me off.

  The other thing I’ve just realised is that they haven’t given us a signed copy of the new tenancy agreement, or an AT5 form, since it was signed 3 months ago. All they’ve given us is an unsigned copy with pages missing and the front page on it’s own for some reason. I tried to get hoold of a copy yesterday and was told they couldn’t find it, I phoned back today and was told they’d finally found it, but I’ll beleive it when I see it.

  In my opinion the whole problem with Grant Management is that they’re a relatively new company and have had such fast growth that they’re unable to keep up with themselves. They own something like 2000 properties and only have 140 staff which doesn’t seem feasible if you need to keep those properties in a liveable condition. They’ve also been buying up hundreds of properties recently with big mortages attached and given the problems with the economy and the housing market they could find themselves in serious trouble soon. If they lack any serious capital the company could just be build on a huge pile of debt.

  I’m going to see a journalist I know I call over the weekend and see if theres a possiblity of any of Edinburghs local papers looking into GM.

  Does anyone know what happened to the facebook page btw?
• 

  Adam | May 26th, 2009 @ 1:02 pm

  Simon,

  I’d recommend http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/family_parent/housing.htm but also contact your SU and ask them for some links to local legal aid. Just go around asking as many people as you can.

  And the facebook page was removed so facebook don’t get in trouble.
• 

  Not Intimated | June 7th, 2009 @ 2:29 pm

  Guys and Gals – read all your posts after posting a year ago. Get yourselves out of Grant Managment flats and most importants DO NOT LET YOURSELF GET INTIMATED BY THEM. There are a number in the office that wil like to puff their chest out and speak roughly to you to intimate you. Don’t stand for this. Stand your ground, don’t yell or shout – be firm and persistent – most importantly – NEVER SEND ANYTHING BY FAX – all correspondence should be sent by registered post so it has been signed for and you have evidence that this has been received.

  Chris – if I were you take a copy of this site just now, stick it on disc and stick in in a bank safety deposit ox or go to a laywer and let them see the site live so the number of complaints have been witnessed formally – just in case this site get’s shut down like the Facebook site – belive you me if it did they will feign slander that everyone is making this up and no such sites ever occured.

  Anyone who has trouble with GM post your complaints direct to WATCHDOG on the link posted in one of the previous posts above.

  NOTE: GRANT MANAGEMENT SEEM TO BE THE ONLY COMPANY THAT WILL TAKE ON TENANTS WHO HAVE NOT BEEN IN FULLTIME EMPLOYMENT FOR MORE THAN 3 MONTHS – Hence the hefty guarantee. Any reputable agency will give each of it’s prospective tenants a credit check, demand three months worth of payslips to prove employment and two references. Grant Management therefore preys on people who can not meet this criteria – like a loan shark, store card or credit card that offers credit for a high percentage of interest back. If you are a student or have just come to Edinburgh from abroad to stay for short term – STAY CLEAR AWAY FROM THEM. Have there been as much complaints of other property agents like there have been of Grant Management? NO! If your a student – go to your University’s accomodation office and ask for a recommended agent’s list. If you have just come to Edinburgh – well – this is the tough one – is there an advice agency which people who have just arrived in Edinburgh can go to (similar like a tourist office or a holiday site which can rate property agents, employers etc? so you know which ones to stay clear of? If not – why the hell not – by heck – let’s start one!
• 

  Marie | June 8th, 2009 @ 4:06 pm

  Hi there !!
  I also have a lot of issues with this agency during this year, in Edinburgh:

  - first, before signing the lease, they asked my flatmate and me to pay for the 2 last months in advance… we did that, and when the 2 last months came, they take our rent !!!!!! we had to call them and come at least 3 times to have our money back, 20 days after !!

  - they leave us without any heating or hot water during 1 and a half week, in November !! and they said that we have to pay £400 (the bill of the previous tenants) in order to get it back !!

  - They arrange some viewing of the flat without telling us before (what a surprise when you go back to your flat and you find people do don’t even know, visiting your place !!)

  - they also came in order to test the alarms, but without informing us before, so they came into the flat and wake me up in my own bed !!!!

  - once they take the rent of one of my flatmate, whereas he just already paid the rent…. so he has to pay banking charges because his account was more than empty, and they never helped !!

  - they don’t want to give the deposit to every flatmate, they prefer to give all the deposits to one “lead tenant” who is in charge of giving the deposit back to the others…

  in brief, what I can say is that this estate agency is such a joke !!!! I would never recommend it to anyone, even my worst ennemy !!! lol
• 

  Andy | June 8th, 2009 @ 8:57 pm

  Hi guys,
  The best thing you can tell them is that you have taken pictures of the disgusting living conditions and have spoken to both legal advisors and local newspapers. We mentioned that to them and they have been nothing but brilliant since then. I am still approaching a newspaper when our lease ends and see what they make of it, however still have a little bit left on it. Can’t wait to move out! Good luck to anyone who makes the mistake of going with Grant Management
• 

  Im in the shit | June 16th, 2009 @ 3:33 pm

  Shocked! However they do many of the best properties in many cities e.g Glasgow Scared now to have to deal with these people in August when i move in………
• 

  Dee | June 22nd, 2009 @ 11:32 am

  Hu guys!
  One of the ways to protect yourself from explotation by people like GM is to engage a property inspection company (sometimes known as an inventory firm) at the beginning of your tenancy. They will compile a very detailed report on the condition of the property and its contents; they will also update the report when you leave the property. We started the business up last year to address and sort out unscrupulous landlords and lettings agents and now have a track record of success stories. This is because we have professional qualifications in property matters (RICS and MAPIP) – we know what is best practice and what is simply not acceptable… even down to the legalities of dilapidations etc.

  The property inspection report will give you 100% peace of mind and provide you with the robust, credible evidence that you need to make sure your are not in a vulnerable position.

  Having a property inspection report (inventory) is very much like insurance – it’s a ‘should have’ as opposed to a ‘must have’….

  If anyone is interested in finding out more or you feel it would be a benefit for one of our team to attend any of the SU meetings – please get on touch through the web site.
• 

  exemployee | June 22nd, 2009 @ 12:43 pm

  I am an ex senior managament employee of GM and i could tell you stories that would make your toes curl! All of the largest clients they have leave and the business model for developing their ‘student’ flats are appalling. I would be happy to give anyone advice and names and contacts should you need it.
• 

  Chris | July 2nd, 2009 @ 6:01 pm

  Just moved out after the worst 2 years of my life, renting from GM. We experienced many of the problems already stated, and some more in addition. GM are currently holding our deposit because our flat is “too dirty”, despite the fact they didn’t clean it before we moved in, and no inventory was ever taken. Aside from going to the citizens advice beaureu, I’ll be contacting local and national newspapers to see if I can get our (and other people’s) stories published. This company should be named, shamed, and shut down.
• 

  Craig | July 6th, 2009 @ 4:33 pm

  I’m taking comfort in people going through the same situation as me. I have just been charged 180quid for “cleaning”. Now I know I left the flat in a better state than it was when I first moved in. Can anyone suggest any advice in how to tackle this problem as I am not willing to just accept that money as being gone.
• 

  Kyle Hatch | July 7th, 2009 @ 12:45 pm

  There seems to be a general hatred of GM, and i’ve heard stories, but no one here seems to have one from the Dundee area, is it GM all over scotland or is it isolate to the larger cities.

  Any Info?

  Cheers

  Kyle.
• 

  exemployee | July 8th, 2009 @ 2:16 pm

  GM have a bit of a sneaky illusion about their size. They have offices in Edinburgh (head office), Glasgow, Dundee and Newcastle. They give the impression they are all over the country including England but they don’t have offices anywhere else and have one person working from home in some of the cities they say they are in. The property management team is tiny and totally inexperienced, having been trained my ex-matalan employees!! Property management is an inconvenience to them as they were primarily property developers and they have no real interest in tenants. As for the cleaning issues you all mention, they have a policy that regardless of the condition of the flat when you move in, if you have lived there for a year or more, then you are deemed to be resposible for having the place returned immaculately and this is in the lease. Very sneaky!

  Also for the people waiting on deposits…only one person deals with them and with 1300 flats averaging 3 people per flat, and all moving out at the same times as they are all student flats, they cant cope!
• 

  George | July 29th, 2009 @ 4:19 pm

  Anyone had any success with this lot? I’m constantly disgusted at just how bad they can be, and just how shit their customer service is. It’s obvious there’s no communication within the different departments – that or they just don’t give a shit about tenant welfare.

  They’re after me for arrears (which came about as a result of their negligence which forced one of my housemates out, so we were left with his share of the rent), and after me for court fees which I had no idea about. It’s great. I try and get hold of them all year, I struggle to get through to anyone, I struggle to get things fixed, and yet as soon as they want something from me, they’re suddenly there.

  If any GM current staff read this. You should be ashamed of yourselves to be part of such a coniving, selfish and disrespectful company. And mark my words I’ll make sure people know all about you!
• 

  Adam | July 31st, 2009 @ 12:30 pm

  For all of you GM haters if its any consolation, i’ve got a friend who is a property developer in Bristol who informed me that GM currently have over 40 vacant houses which just shows that peoples complaining, reporting etc is actually working!
• 

  Anthony | July 31st, 2009 @ 10:27 pm

  Hi guys
  im so happy that this page exists! i have had SOOO much trouble with grant managment and have been absolutly appauled by there attitude throughout my tenancy this year.
  There was damp on my ceiling which I was informing them about every other day for 4 months before someone came round to ammend the situation. The guy who came to fix the roof was appauled and said when he touched it, it literally fell through! The fixing process took a further 3 weeks and grant managment actually took the rent from me that month even though they apologised for the situation.
  I fought black and blue and eventually (after a further sevral months) received £150 back (our rent was £240 PCM).
  We then had a wasp infestation that no one came out to deal with.
  Then the washing machine broke and took 2 weeks for someone to come out and fix.
  After i graduated i still had sevral months left on my contract and agreed with head office that my guarentor would be paying the rest of the fees. Everything was finalised and confirmed over the phone and it was agreed payments would start to come out of her account. As the payments stopped fro my bank we assumed everything was ok. After three months they contacted me and said I had 15 minutes to make the payment, to which i replied “why have you not spoken to my guarentor? it was agreed she was paying now”. my mother was in egypt so i told them they had to call her when she returned in 5 days. She did so and my mum obv played holy hell because they had not been taking the money out of the bank and were now asking for £180 on top for charges (that STUPID £30 weekly charge!). they then called me and threatned me that if it wasnt payed in 30 minutes then they would double the charge for inconveniences….ridiculous!!
  my tenancy ends in 8 days and i said to the woman who i was speaking to
  “can it be made in installments” to which she replied
  “no, I want it payed all in 30 mintues”
  “what if it cant be payed before the end of the tenancy?”
  “it WILL be payed”
  “but what if im financially unable to?”
  “it WILL be payed. If your mum can jetset off to egpyt then she can pay this, LIke i said it WILL be payed”

  To summarise. Grant managment are without the WORST HOUSING COMPANY out there. They are ridiculously understaffed, lacking in professional experties and unable to sustain any form of professionalism due to there lacking standards.

  - can anyone help me with regards to deposits. I am worried that if the payment cannot be made in time that my housemates will not receive there deposits back. If anyone had a similar experience I would greatly appreciate a response as im worried about there situation.
• 

  Lindsay Suttie | August 6th, 2009 @ 2:51 pm

  wow, at last others in the same boat as we are. Myself and 3 other flat mates rented from GM up until july this year. We are fighting for part oif our deposit back, which they took from us for repairing fire door hinges. Surely this is just cassed wear and tear, and does not merit £113 being taken from your deposit for this. Were also still fighting for £40 we had to pay for elecricity from a time when we were not even the tennants of the flat. They claimed they paid it, but there is no record anywhere of this. They are a nightmare to work with and the switchboard you have to phone up in edinburgh is a joke, when there is an office just down the road from us. We had about 10 wokrmen our to our flat to fix things that went wrong over the year!!
• 

  Rebecca Mc Faul | August 11th, 2009 @ 1:44 pm

  Hello, I am happy that I found this site if for no other reason than that it makes me feel like I can put my grievances out there for someone to use against them.
  Where do I start??
  Bullying, rude, intimidating, clueless and useless staff? The staff that left us with no boiler. The staff that left us with a hole in the ceiling that had water pouring through it and then charged us for damp damage. Yeh seriously, even though I called them about it every day for 3months.
  The staff that told me to deal directly with the cowboys they send out to fix said boiler/roof/broken window/ broken banister etc not to bother them.
  They never “logged” any of the formal complaints I made.
  They sent agents with viewings over without notice and were then rude.
  When our improperly installed bathroom window cracked under the pressure we called them out to see it, when they eventually came and said that even though the crack went all the way across the glass, we’d obviously hit it ourselves and would be charged for it. Guess what, it never got fixed.

  I could go on and on but the thing I am having kittens over right now is, we moved out over a month ago and they called me yesterday to say they are keeping the £800 deposit and charging us an extra £2,500 because they said they saw fleas and ripped out all carpets and soft furnishings. Right because when you find fleas on something…you destroy it? yes? Not ask us to pay Rentokill £280 to fumigate? That I would have been happy to do. But I’ll be damned if their massive overreaction is coming out of my own money. No sir I don’t think so.

  “You owe us £2540 i want it by Thursday or we’re going to drag you through court”
  “Um, it’s Monday”
  “Thursday is the deadline”
  “I’m not saying we’ll pay but can we discuss a payment plan”
  “no, you will pay the full amount by Thursday”

  Plus more rude calls to my boyfriend and it looks like we’ll be going to court.

  Btw all 4 of us in the house were working 25yr olds…why do they keep threatening to talk to our parents!? We’re adults and moved in un-supported by our parents, wtf have they got to do with anything!?
• 

  Matthew | August 11th, 2009 @ 1:47 pm

  Hi I would love it if you could give me your email address exemployee as we left the property at the start of july and have just been told they are keeping the full 1000 deposit and charging us 2514.13 for all soft furnishing and carpets to be replaced due to a ‘flea infestation’.. which they have already started doing before even telling us. I am informed by a solicitor that they have taken longer than 20 days to declare any grievences so have no legal right to claim anything but I would rather not goto court. I spoke to another large agency homes4u and asked what they would do in this situation I made it clear i was never renting again so don’t try a sales pitch and she said honestly they would get it fumigated and bill us for that… £200 not £3500… what a company! The best bit is they ring us on the monday saying they want this money and we have until thursday to pay, this is the first we’ve heard of it because suprise suprise the detailed cleaning report including a full breakdown of their massive spending spree they claim to have posted NEVER ARRIVED! I can guess why, because it was never posted.
• 

  Adam | August 11th, 2009 @ 6:46 pm

  Matthew,

  They are all talk! GM wanted to take me to court and i was ready for it but once my lawyer corrected their lawyer and a bit of confusion arose it appeared that GM hadn’t told their lawyer’s the full story where by the immediately backed down!
  I refused to pay after the same threats but i won!
• 

  Matthew | August 13th, 2009 @ 11:03 am

  Thats good to know Adam thanks for the post, things are looking more promising as they act more and more unprofessionally hopefully they will dig their own grave and the landlord will take them to court. Have managed to find a solicitor that is interested in helping us with no charge which is fantastic news and going through our tenancy agreement they have failed to do several things relating to the deposit including telling us about their grievences within 10 days of us leaving the property and providing us details of the TDS scheme it is supposidly held in (which I can’t check because you need the certificate number they should have provided us with). It took them 28 days to post a copy that never arrived (I was emailed it later after requesting it) and then posted another hard copy.

  Congrats on your win!
• 

  Charles Harrison | August 13th, 2009 @ 11:24 am

  All of these comments have a similar theme. Bullying, extortion. My son entered a flat that was totally unfit for purpose and needed work done that was over three months in commencing. GM have as expected have tried to claw back some of their overdue expenditure by withholding the deposit after the flat had a video inspection. Another tactic. there needs to be a concerted effort to publicise their antics. Contact the housing or social officers in the universities as a start to deter others from using GM. Those in occupancy can remonstrate through posters on their windows. We had no knowledge of GM’s poor record of behaviour prior to signing the lease and have terminated after a year of problems.
• 

  Dawn Boaden | August 14th, 2009 @ 4:28 pm

  My Son and I are currently in contact with GM concerning fairly standard problems, if the other posts are anything to go by!! Having posted a moan on Facebook Group “Troubles with Grant Management” I received an email from Peter Grant. Take a look at the group wall and you will get the jist. We have posted info on their last posted company accounts but the most significant thing is Peter’s email address pg2@grantmanagement.oc.uk

  Good luck – just a thought – maybe we should consider a class action!! I would love to see them on Watchdog!!
• 

  Douglas | August 16th, 2009 @ 4:04 pm

  Hi
  Me and my flatmates are professionals have moved into a property with GM in Newcastle a week ago yesterday. We were told that we could move in on the Saturday afternoon, after the house had been fumigated due to a previous tenants cat spreading fleas around the house. It turns out that they only properly sprayed one room. Within in the three nights one person had received just over forty bites to his legs and his abdomen, which we have photographically documented. He now has to live in the spareroom on a mattress, without a duvet and bedding loosing sleep and jeopardising his job security.

  We’ve rang Environmental Health and they have contacted GM twice to get this matter resolved. GM’s solution was to send Rentokill out and spray the corners and edges of the rooms. This clearly hasn’t worked as myself and my flatmates girlfriend have now received bites, as well as seeing numerous fleas in the living room and kitchen, places where we spend the most time.

  It states in the contract that the Landloed aka GM, has it make the Property ‘Inhabitable to Humans’. Surely, if we’re having to constantly wash our bedding and clothes everyday just to get rid of the fleas and one person is having to sleep in the spare room, in conditions that are definately not humanly inhabitable.

  We are now at our wits end and are complaining directly to Newcaslte City Council, Citizens Advice and ARLA. Are these grounds for which we can A) pull out of the tenancy; B) get compensation in the form of not paying rent; C) getting all the furniture in the house replaced?

  Thanks
• 

  exemployee | August 17th, 2009 @ 2:14 pm

  Some pointers for you:

  ARLA is your first line of defense in complaints. GM were desperate to be members and went through a lot of training to get into it (they had to sort out their deposits first!). ARLA will be on your side for any complaints.

  The Council HMO teams will also help you of you complain about any repair issues. Any complaint the council receive will be brought up at renewal time for the licenses. GM must be ‘fit and proper’ landlords and this is reviewed by the council on a regular basis.

  Trading standards are also ideal for following up repairs as the company must adhere to their guidlines.

  In my experience, any time a tenant took GM to the small claims court, they settled prior to the case being heard as no emplyee would go to the hearing and GM wont pay for a lawyer. It is only 40 odd pounds to register a claim. If everyone with a grievenace did that, they would be spending thousands a month in legal costs.

  I know its hard to take, but apart from credit control (who have no people skills at all) the property managers are undertrained, undermanned and under huge pressure. Not one of them like their jobs and there is a huge staff turnover that i saw when i was there.

  Keep pressure on them using councils, trading standards and courts, they will never listen to your complaints or letters.
• 

  Peter Grant | August 19th, 2009 @ 6:32 am

  Hi

  I’m Peter Grant. If you have any seruious problems that are not resolved quickly, let me know and I can help. Best way to contact me is direct on Pg2@grantmanagement.co.uk, which is my personal email address. Always happy to help.

  With 6,000 tenants, even if we achieve 98% satisfaction we will still have 12o unhappy ones at any time. I’d rather those 120 contact me and I can help make it 99% or 100% satisfaction! I like good tenants and want them to stay!

  Peter

  Peter
• 

  Anno | August 19th, 2009 @ 2:58 pm

  @ Peter Grant

  Fuck off, we complained countless times about problems in the house. The problem is with your huge turn around of inept staff and your disregard for the terms and conditions of your own tenancy agreements. Grant management believe in bullying and scare tactics and what sort of company advises tenants to contact their parents for money…. fucking moronic not everyone that has the misfortune to rent from you is a student with rich parents and just because the majority are doesn’t mean you can bully and harass people. I understand that it was difficult for Grant Management to get ARLA approvement all I can hope is that with my complaint and the support of others on this site (and the many more anti-GM sites) we can get some justise.
• 

  GMsuck | August 19th, 2009 @ 6:14 pm

  “With 6,000 tenants, even if we achieve 98% satisfaction we will still have 12o unhappy ones at any time.”

  “even if” this would assume that you don’t and I can well believe that. Quoting figures like these will not defend your company’s disgraces 120 unhappy customers is 120 too many and I stress again I find that figure hard to believe, actually maybe if you account for the GM complaints department using invisible computer systems and invisible ink to make notes of tenant problems. “There’s nothing on the system” well I am surprised random new employee why don’t I waste more of my time telling you the whole story again like I did the last 10 employees who no longer work for Grant Management.
• 

  Sarah | August 19th, 2009 @ 11:43 pm

  Hi everyone! I could tell from my own experience that more than a housing agency is actually a trap for mice…unfortunatly I realised late what they are about; staff is totally unhelpful, arrogant, rude,useless,liar…funny is that in Edinburgh head office there are so many certificats hanged on the wall about their excellent customers service skills….BULLSHITS!!! they not even know what simply being kind means..they dont know nothing about customer service at all !I phoned them countless times to found more about my personal situation…nobody have a clue about it!
  anyway, they are unlikely to rise a court in 24 hrs like they say (too expensive + they r very bad agency that they wont stand a chance to win…),or even take the money straight from your employer…………….just close your bank account and dont answer to their stupid emails.
• 

  Peter Grant | August 21st, 2009 @ 12:51 pm

  Hi

  I’m simply not going to engage with any rude or inappropriate comments. More than happy to answer ANY questions.

  If anyone has had a problem in the past, then please accept my appologies.

  I can deal with live issues, and I can answer any constructive comments, but bear in mind that I can’t turn the clock back.

  So please do leave consructive comments or feel free to ask any questions. If you’d rather do this in private, email me at pg2@grantmanagement.co.uk, which is my personal email address. I wrote a snap answer for some of the backlog of questions, but failed to post it as the conectioin from where I am (overseas) is not good. I’ll have another attempt…

  Peter
• 

  Peter Grant | August 21st, 2009 @ 12:58 pm

  Hi

  Peter here. I’ll try and answer soem of the recent general questions which will relate to any management company, To get specific help, contact me on the email address below.

  1. I have a problem, who do I contact? In the first instance contact the team – they are there to help. You can also go to http://www.gmhelp.com to get the answer to pretty much any question. If a problem is serious and unresolved, let me know at my personal email address and I can help. pg2@grantmanagement.co.uk

  2. Vermin etc. Not a common problem, but needs to get solved fast. We would use the council or a professional co such as rentokil. Whoever the specialist co is, they should be able to solve the problem quickly and answer any technical questions. See www;gmhelp.com also.

  3. End of tenancy. We will work out what money is due back, deducting breakages, cleaning etc. If there is a major set of problems to resolve deposit release can be delayed. See http://www.gmhelp.com

  4. Legal actions. Pretty drastic if it comes to that. 99.9% of problems are resolved. I can only think of a very small number of cases where an action is reaised. A landlord may for example sue over unpaid rent., The decison to sue does not lie with us but the two parties – ie the tenant or the landlord. Our job is to try and make sure each party sticks to their agreement / contract.

  5.. Bullying I’ve never received a complaint about bullying. If I did, and if it was true, I’d first consider customer care training and then discipline or sack the individual if it was outside what we stand for. We record all calls so can back track on anything to get the facts for up to a year, I think.

  6. Bad service / not getting things done. First you need to let us know – make the call, explain the problem and get the persons name who you spoke to. We log repairs (and record all calls) and contractors are assigned. We will give you the contractors numbers, so you can liaise direct, and control the repair, speak to the contractor direct. If a contractor doesn’t do the job reasonably quickly, we need to know, to assign another. Feedback on poor contractor service means we can replace them with another who is prepared to give better service. Contractors are not employees of Gm. Serious problems can be ultimately escaled to myself at pg2@grantmanagement.co.uk . If one of my own team give bad service I need to know also, so we can train / discipline / fire as appropriate. One of our core values is to give good sevice. If that’s breaking down (and humans are human) we need to find out where, and solve it.

  7. Communuication. Intrigued by that one. Would it make more sense to have one team who can cover all aspects of your tenasncy – so being able to cover repairs, rent and arrears, etc? At present we have money handled by accounts, seperate from repairs etc. I’d welcome your views.

  8. Rent. All rent should be collected by Direct Debit – it then falls directly into the correct tenant account through automated technology. The only way rent problems can arise is if someone cancels the DD or there are insufficient funds in your bank account. We send an automated lettter, and may apply a penalty to cover the cost. The issue for us to manage, is that if tenants don’t pay their rent on time then the landlord can’t pay their mortgage! Their banks gets very grumpy very quickly.

  Hope that answers a great number of general questions.

  Peter
• 

  Sarah | August 21st, 2009 @ 6:09 pm

  to mr peter grant, if there’s just 1% of unsatisfied people as u said, why many university decided to DONT support your agency anymore (due to they high numbers of complains coming from students….), why arrived to the point to even write an article on the newspaper if your agency was so bloody good??????????were just the complains of 20 people to do that?????? I had my own experience with gm in Edinburgh, I though to be the only one having a nightmare with them, but i can confirm most of the things have been said above that h^ppened to me and my friends who rented with you.
  I wont go through all my story,which is quite long and thankfully over but I would like to ask u some questions:
  I wanted to move in the flat 15 days after so I asked the staff if the landlord was alright with that. Ive been told the they were going to ask him,apparently he was living overseas….which was a lie cos they contradicted themself several times…,anyway this guy was 100 % sure to call me the day after and so there were 5 more people….,which never happened,I spent 10 days calling,going to the office,talking 2 different
  people….reminding them about my situation….Now, is this one an example of the good customer service ?????????5 people who doesnt have a clue about what to do with you??????? called gm to fix the washing machine…….nobody gave a damn about it for 2 months….they had been charge for it at the end of the tenancy!!!!!! Hilarious!!!Isnt it???? very high skilled staff ans seriuos agency ….!!!
  funny is that at the moment u r at the stepdoor of or flat ready to move in…..your keys are not the right set ….!!! so u call gm 15 mins before closing in a friday day……..and they just tell u to comeback at the office on monday but u live 3 hrs away from edinburgh!!!!! Is this another example of good skilled staff service?????
  and i can go on and on…but i dont care anymore,just want let people know that gm is the worst letting agency u can ever expect to find;
• 

  Chris | August 22nd, 2009 @ 2:59 pm

  A few comments were caught in the moderation queue. I’ve released them and deleted the duplicates.

  As a quick note. I’m happy for people to talk and vent about their numerous issues with Grant Management here, but now that Peter has entered the conversation, thanks for that by the way, I’m going to expect everyone to continue behaving themselves. By that I mean no personal attacks, insults, etc. You get the idea, you’re all grown ups.

  No one has done anything that would have their comment edited or deleted, but I just wanted to give you plenty of warning that I won’t allow it, and won’t hesitate to delete something if I think it’s offensive. My house, my rules!

  Anyway, thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment.
• 

  Peter Grant | August 22nd, 2009 @ 7:55 pm

  Hi Chris … Thanks for your support on that!

  Sarah … to answer some of your questions, albeit they seem to go back some time, as I think you are no longer a tenant, but you were with us for 2 years(?):

  1. Fast move ins. As far as I’m concerned we can move people in next day. The fastest we have ever managed is 3-4 hrs. That assumes of course the tenant and landlord are both happy and the flat is sitting empty. The reason there is a delay at all, is that we have to go through the paperwork etc (references, DD etc). We are now pretty well automated with that so we should be able to do it ever faster. Landlord here or oveseas makes no difference, as we communicate by email and telephone. The issue is getting hold of them. In extreme cases landlords have said they have changed their mind about renting once we bhave found tenants, so we do have to check. That’s very occasionally only (1 or 2 in a year). I suspect in your case the person you were dealing with was not very efficeint and wasn’t following our values. Remeber their name? All move ins are now web based so no faxing, rekeying, etc etc.

  2. We now deal with repairs same day (ie we log them live). 2 Yrs ago it could have been that the old system fell over a lot and we sometimes lost data and we sometimes could not enter things live, when the system was down. That said it sounds more like the sub contractor wasn’t doing their job. Nowadays we are 100% live and also track the number of jobs completed in 7,14, 21 days etc. Washing machines are normally a fast response. In extreme cases we can get a new one in 2 days. A problem with white goods could also have been the supply of parts (or that’s what suppliers would often tell us). We do now give tenants the contractors numbers so they can speak to them direct. Go to Gmhelp.com to learn more about repairs, and see my earlier note above.

  On who pays for what, in the context of Wash Machines I understand that the two most common problems are
  a. Overloading them so they jam
  b. Bra wires (true) which come loose and jam the machine.
  In those two cases it’s down to usage, so it’s fair that the tenant pays. If on the other hand it’s a mechanical problem, the LL pays. On who pays for what see GmHelp.com. I think we also give advice on these and other typical problems up front. The trouble is that people don’t always read them. I can only assume that in your case the contractor said it was a Tenant charge.

  3. Keys at move in. We generally give tenants one set of keys. They should work, as they have been used by the previous tenants and the independent move out contractors who do the flat changeovers. In practice we may give more sets out if we have them available. Where it could go wrong (esp in Scotland, where there are tenaments) is that a common front door may have the lock changed by any of the neighbours. We would get working keys back from the departing tenants, but these could be mixed up with old ones. By giving out several sets we can manage out that problem. I’m not aware that we have a massive problem with keys at move in, so yours may be an isolated case. If you were expecting five sets of keys for 5 people, that something we are clear about that we don’t do, (although quite often we can). If there was a mess up and we gave you the keys to a wrong house … that would be a 1 in a 1,000 situation as we have all keys number coded. It could only really happen if a tenant returned a completely wrong set of keys and we retagged them with the house number, or if a member of staff was Dyslexic.

  Anyhow, whatever the problem, we try and pre- manage these out nowadays – on all the above. When problems arise we do our best to sort them immediately.

  In fairness we had some service problems 2-3 years ago, which were highligghted to us by the then Student President Josh McAllister. We worked with the uni to really undersatnd them and change what we did and how. We really looked at the bsuiness and carried out a lot of training with the Council (who do a great job in that) plus ARLA. We threw out our old comouter stsyem and spoent a loit of money on a new one. We restructured to combine teams so internal communication improved. At the end of that process we got a thumbs up from the Council and the Ubni. We have since been accredited by all councils and Uni’s throughout the UK (12 cities), where such accreditation exists.

  Last year we discovered our repairs service (via Sub contractors) was not great in Bristol. Again we resolved this and sorted it.

  Right now we are in our busiest time of the year, when the teams are under greatest time pressure. The level of complaints from current tenants is very low. The greatest criticism seems to come from past tenants who had a bad experience in the past. So maybe we are getting better?

  Hope that helps explain some things.

  I will email all current tenants this next week, to flush out any serious / lingering problems.

  Peter
• 

  Peter Grant | August 22nd, 2009 @ 8:03 pm

  An idea …

  As well as highlighting problems (which I’m happy to receive and answer (if old) or fix (if current), can anyone also please put forward ideas on what we could do differently to improve things for all current / new tenants.

  This could be your chance to make a difference …

  All ideas a greatfully received. If they are rubbish I’ll be polite. If they are good I’ll introduce them. If they are great I’ll put up a reward! Could be monthly or whatever makes sense. We had attempted to set up a supervisory board made up of tenants and landlords last year, but it was too small and too cumbersome. Perhaps with Facebook / Twitter this can be open and include anyone. If anyone wants to take on the challenge of setting it up, let me know.

  - Chris?

  Peter
• 

  Camilla | August 24th, 2009 @ 10:41 am

  I just thought I’d add my story to the pool, as that seems to be the thing to do.

  We rented the flat from Grant Management (GM). This we were later to regret. And I am never touching anything of theirs ever again. See, after a while it turned out that not only was the whole flat rather shoddily done up, my room turned out to be a mould colony (refer to pictures linked above). I am asthmatic and had a very strong reaction to this mould, and armed myself with a letter from my doctor which very clearly stated that it was dangerous for me (as I maintain it would have been for anyone) to live there. I assumed they would fix it. They did not.

  We went through some excruciating months of having long debates with them in the hall, trying to explain that the flat was not fit for human habitation. The only thing they consented to do about it was to paint over the mould, which meant it came back every two weeks or so, leading to new rounds with the people at their office (not to mention that we had to schedule time to be at home one day every two weeks, or have people come into my bedroom when I wasn’t there).

  In the end I tried to get someone to take over the flat from us (which we had always planned to — we had signed a two-year lease because GM had assured us that there would be no problem getting someone to take over after one year), but it turned out (surprise) that people are less than enthusiastic about taking over a lease on a flat that is mouldy. When we confronted GM with this, they told us to get someone to take over the flat by not telling them that there was mould there (which could be done by having people come look at the flat just after they had sent someone on their bi-weekly painting-tour). We replied that if that wasn’t illegal, it was certainly immoral — but the man did not seem overly ashamed.

  It is fairly obvious in retrospect that that was what had happened before we moved in. There had been mould; they had painted over it. What is worse: it is clear that is still their policy. I have walked past our old flat lately, and you can tell from the outside that the whole wall is damaged by water. I feel for the people they tricked into taking it. I have toyed with the idea of ringing the bell and telling them about our experiences and how they would probably have a case against GM if they want to get out of the lease, as we can at least prove now that GM knew about the damage before someone else moved in. But I haven’t quite been brave enough yet.

  Anyway. We moved out, but were resigned to keep paying the rent on the place. In short, we gave up. Then, a couple of weeks after our departure, the roof caved in. I am not joking.

  There was an attic above our flat. We had never been up there, as there was no easy way to do that. But it turned out someone had placed a bucket there. I can only imagine this was GM’s idea of a solution to the problem of a hole in the roof. Well, Scotland can be fairly wet at times, and this bucket overflowed, covered the roof with water, causing it to finally give in. This meant GM could no longer claim that the flat was providing shelter from the elements (one of the very few clauses that will allow you to dissolve a GM contract (the person at the Council we talked to in order to get help to get out of this hell-hole told us they were fire-proof, and we came away with the understanding that we might as well have signed away our souls/firstborn/firstborn’s soul). We therefore got out of the second year of our contract. No thanks to GM.

  I now find that two of my friends (despite having been warned) have just rented a GM flat, and what do they find? Despite the property having been empty for 11 months (providing ample time for fixing problems), over half the appliances that came with the flat were broken. GM had not taken the trouble to fix anything before letting it out again. Despite having noted that the appliances were broken.

  Assurances that things will get better are all well and good.
  In my experience Grant Management are full of hollow promises.
• 

  Peter Grant | August 24th, 2009 @ 9:36 pm

  Hi Camilla

  Damp or mould can only come from within (ie condensation from kitchen or Bathroom) or from a leak on the outside that is penetrating in. If it’s from within painting over it with special paint and improving the ventilation so it desn’t recur, is the answer. If it’s from the outside, or a leak from above no amount of painting will help! The slight complexity from outside and or above, is that ivn a flat, it would be a common reopair, and one or any of the inhabitants would noitify the council and have it fixed. The council would recharge the various owners. If any repair involves the council or an insurance company it can take a bit longer as the council are not always very fast to react. Insurers are generally quicker. It sounds like it was a council comon repair and we were trying to make it more inhabitable while it was in process. Whatever the problem it’s not good and we shold at least have kept you in the loop.

  I hope that explains what should have happened. With the benefit of hindsight what yiu could have done also is to raise the ante if you were not getting progress with the team. In such a situation you shoulkd insist on speaking to the MD or a Director., so yoi escalate the problem. Had I known about it we would have reacted appropriately and quickly. If I could have the power over time travel, I’d be there!

  On your pals who are renting right now, if they have a problem and its not getting resolved quickly – pass them my email address. pg2@grantmanagement.co.uk. I’d be glad to help.

  On buckets in the loft, I can assure you I have never paid my staff to climb into any loft with any bucket at any time. Apart from anything else we use independent contractors to carry out repiars, although we do now have a handyman employed by us for minor repairs etc in Edinburgh, to help speed things up. Please refer to http://www.Gmhelp.com on his type of issue.

  As I said above, I’m going to email all existing tenants tgis week to ensure there are no lingering problems.

  Peter
• 

  Camilla | August 27th, 2009 @ 4:26 pm

  The mould was most certainly not due to kitchen fumes. And we were very aware that the painting did not help. But pointing it out did no good. My point is that you cannot expect people to keep living there for months on end, not to mention paying for it, under that sort of conditions.

  I assure you I would have taken it to higher authorities if your “team” in Edinburgh had not very skilfully created the illusion that they were fixing things. Whenever we talked to them, the problem would be resolved in “just a few days”, but that situation never changed.

  The person who told us to keep silent about the mould when looking for new tenants was a Mr Farrally, who we did get when asking for someone more senior. Feel free to fire him. Although I imagine it would be tricky, as I haven’t got that in writing.

  As to the bucket on the loft: I have no doubt it was put there by independent contractors, but surely someone from Grant Management must check the property before it is let out?
• 

  John | August 28th, 2009 @ 12:01 pm

  We had people come and “fix things” that weren’t sorted when we moved in such as the boiler and the shower, the massive holes in the wall for sink waste (obviously lots of things we mentioned never got fixed such as the three way light switch where one switch just flickers the bulb). We also had a damp problem which caused mould we literally complained 20 times about this situation before anyone even looked at it, we were told to liase with contractors ourselves who told us that they were waiting on GM for the go ahead to fix it, GM told us to talk to the contractors sending us around in circles. They must assume we are students and are in all the time despite us all working full time jobs, they expect people to wait in for contractors who don’t turn up because they can’t even organise them a key for the property. Eventually a board was put up where the damage from the leaking roof was at its worst, obviously this didn’t fix it and it continued to get worse, damp was listed as one of the things wrong with the property that we were charged for when leaving… Also noticed that when people came to “fix” the chimney vents that GM contractors had forgotten to leave (they had plastered over them) all they did was stick vent convers on with adhesive and leave… might explain the damp when the house can’t breath. Although the massive gaps under all the windows probably allows for enough ventalation and also makes heating the place expensive but obviously it was carbon neutral (for all thats worth)

  Things like this might not be an issue if anyone at GM cared about properties they ‘develop’ or the tenants they house as much as the profit they attempt to generate.

  Peter, why don’t you try giving your own team a ring, test a scenario see how you like the treatment you get? Even if you are dedicated to helping people your repairs team are far from it, by the looks of things you have plenty of examples here. Pick an unhappy tenant and ring through their problem on their behalf see how that pans out, I’ll place a bet that the first thing they say is we’ll get someone to ring you back about that later today if not tomorrow and it will never happen.
• 

  Peter Grant | August 30th, 2009 @ 8:45 pm

  Hi John

  I just did one better than that and emailed all 6,000 current tenants to see what serious / annoying problems are outstanding.

  If someone highlighted a series of problems, today, I’d appologise, have a senior member of the team visit the property and get it all resoved as quickly as possible.

  By making my email address highly accessible, and asking for any issues to be emailed to me direct, I’m confident we are doing the right thing.

  Are you still a tenant? If yes, drop me an email at pg2@grantmanagement.co.uk and we can get together. Even if you are no longer a tenant I’d be happy to meet so I can cross check that any issues of the past, would be handled correctly and resolved, today.

  In fairness to the team, there were some practical problems (now resolved) going back 2-3 years ago. This past year we have made some big investments and changes to help staff and tenants alike.
  1. New database to replace old one which kept falling over and loosing data.
  2. New phone system to record all calls. It holds them for a year.
  3. Teams combined so internal comunication is better.
  4. My email address openly available for escalation of serious / lingering problems.

  I know of no other property management company which has made the kinds of investment that we have, and who are as avalable as we (and I) are.

  Even you must surely acknowledge we are taking things seriously and heading in absolutely the right direction?

  Peter
• 

  Peter Grant | August 30th, 2009 @ 8:28 pm

  Hi Camilla

  We used to have someone called Charlie Farrally who worked in lettings, but he left us two years ago… could it have been that long back? Blonde Hair. Big guy.

  Trust me – given it’s my company, and I get to pay peoples salary, I would be only too pleased to stop paying someone for delivering bad service. Exit stage left after a short spell in the training room! (We are IIP accredited). It makes no sense to suggest otherwise.

  On escalating things, definitely do so. Most good md’s DO care about their customers and need feedback. Apart from wanting to root our poor service “neds”, if any business looses clients, they loose money. They certainly don’t make more!

  Personally I like good tenants who pay their bills. I emailed all our tenants (6,000) on Friday. They will be a good barometer for whether we are now getting things right.

  Hopefully I’m making some kind of sense?

  Peter
• 

  Peter Grant | August 30th, 2009 @ 9:31 pm

  Hi Chris …

  You stared this Wall or whatever the term is. What’s your view on what we have been doing behind the scenes, and our approach to service, today.

  What further changes woud you suggest we make as a busness to take our custmer service and communication to a whole new level? I’d be interested in your views, not least because you were annoyed enough to do something about it.

  A couple of years ago a very irate tenant wrote to me and said Gm’s service was poor. I met with him and listened. I took what he said on board. I then gave him a job, so he could help instill change from within. He accepted and has worked with us for the past 2-3 years part time while going through his course.

  I also took on a very talented lady, Carole Anne, who used to work for the council giving advice to disgruntled tenants, and then taking the management companies to task. When I heard she had been offered a job elsewhere, I asked her to work for us. She rose through the ranks quickly and now heads the team who look after some 7 cities in England.

  My point is that we actually have some very talented people. They do a good job. They care. It’s a bit unkind to them to imply they are useless., because someone messed up 2-3 years ago.

  With some 60,000 past tenants I’m sure some will come forward and share their stories. Invariably they are about practical problems around a leak from an upstairs flat, a mouse setting up home. A sub contractor not doing their job properly. We sometimes get accused of causing these problems. We don’t.

  We sometimes get accused of not having solved the problems quickly. It’s difficult to check these through if they are from the past and it’s impossible for me to to turn the clock back.

  Nowadays, I’m convinced we are better placed to respond. The answers to pretty much every type of problem are on http://www.gmhelp.com. We record every call and keep it for a year so can check back on poor service complaints so we on the one hand respond to a complaint but on the other hand don’t fire someone simply on the sayso of a tenant.

  In a week or so I’ll post the analysis of what our current tenants are saying to us, from the email I sent out.

  In a couple of weeks after that I’ll post some amusing things we get asked to fix. Example – “can you send an electrician to change my light bulb”. Or “my sink is blocked” We send a plumber who looks at the sink which is piled full of dirty dishes and water. He puts his hand in, and pulls out the plug and hey presto the water drains away”. (Both of those are true).

  In the same way as these are tenant one offs, and clearly not representative of all tenants, it’s equally wrong to say that all Gm Staff today are no good.

  Peter
  ps one final one … A neighbour compained about a leak into her flat. We went to investigate. Turned out one of the tenants was Greek and didn’t ever close the shower curtain when having a shower, as she didn’t have them back home. She had no idea what it was for(!)
• 

  Adam | August 31st, 2009 @ 8:15 pm

  Peter,

  Thank you for posting your personal email address for many reasons.
  Also now i know you actually record the phone call conversations i shall be in contact very shortly.
  1, to discuss the compensation which was discussed by my self and one of your colleagues! Due to your companies poor management and communication myself as a ‘ex-tenant’ if i can call my self that I had to pay out sums of money which wouldn’t have been necessary if your company followed by the contract.

  2, to discuss the rudeness and harassment I’ve received of your company after many letters being sent from my solicitor. Obviously as the company owner you should have copies of all of the letters and emails sent through my solicitors which shortly you can retrieve from the files.

  I look forward to speaking to you soon!
• 

  Chris | September 1st, 2009 @ 12:22 pm

  Hi Peter,

  The dealings I had with your company were about a year ago now, and needless to say they were not very positive otherwise I would never have needed to post the letter of complaint up here. However, that was a year ago when you yourself said there were issues.

  Without any recent direct contact I obviously can’t comment on any current problems/improvements within the company but I do want to commend you for what you are doing here.

  One of the major issues I had in the past was there never seemed to be a consistent, satisfactory, point of contact to escalate problems to. That you are now engaging with the community, supplying your own email address, and responding to people in places like my site, and the Facebook page is a very big step in the correct direction.

  Even if all the problems described on this site and elsewhere are completely resolved, and everything from this point forward is flawless in terms of property, and tenant satisfaction you are still going to have issues because of the perception of your company. That these issues are older doesn’t dispel the fact that they caused a lot of people, a lot of trouble, and because of that your reputation via word of mouth is pretty shot.

  Now that’s not a permanent thing of course, but it is going to require a LOT of work to rectify, the first step obviously being to make sure these issues don’t happen anymore, but just as importantly that you begin rebuilding your reputation through doing things like this. People are going to complain on their blogs, or on Twitter, or Facebook, and that makes their complaints public, and very, very searchable. For example, I just ran a search for Grant Management Complaints in Google. Your Helpdesk was FOURTH on the list, and it was sandwiched in there between a lot of bad press. Some of it may be older, some may be recent, what matters is the problems are all that are seen, and all that will continue to be seen unless they are resolved publicly, such as your recent comments here.

  Clearly you are doing a lot of work to repair that damage to your reputation, and things like recorded calls, and solid IT infrastructure help. If it’s not in place can I suggest every time someone calls up with a fault they are given a tracking number. That way there is no need for them to have to tell their story over and over. They quote a reference, their name, and the person on the other end of the phone now has all the details they need… I imagine something like this is in place because you said there is a new database in place. If not, I really would recommend doing it.

  I hope that helps.
• 

  Ash Hughes | September 4th, 2009 @ 12:50 am

  Hi.
  We have also had many issues with Grant Management. We rented a flat with them in Edinburgh and our lease ended about a year ago.

  On many occasions we rang up to ask for repairs and nothing was done. Upon ringing again we were told countless times that our calls had not been logged and that this time they would be dealt with. Eventually we only contacted them by taking letters down to their office personally to ensure that they were read.

  We also had agents with come round to view the property without notice. For convenience I presume, they carried out mass viewings. We rented a flat with 5 bedrooms, so this meant that groups of more than 15 people entered our flat at the same time over a long period. We found this highly disruptive. Perhaps the worst incident was when the roof leaked, flooding our flat. Several carpets were soaked through and the light switches in the bathroom became unsafe. When we phoned we were told that it was not an emergency matter. No one came to inspect the damage to the property and we were not supplied with a dehumidifier. The resulting spores in the carpet caused a friend of my then flatmate’s to suffer a severe asthmatic reaction.

  After moving out of our flat we were sent a checklist detailing deposit deductions from our final inspection, which one of us was present for. Several small deductions were agreed upon, however when we received the final inventory we were surprised to find that we had been charged for a replacement bed, a lock change, and a second clean had been carried out several weeks after we had handed over the keys to the property.

  After contacting Grant Management about this, we were told that when the new tenants had moved in they had found vomit on one of the beds. They claimed that after having handed over the keys we had entered the flat and made this mess. We were provided with no evidence of this; Grant management did not call the police which we feel would have been more appropriate and ignored the fact that the property could have been easily entered by the scaffolding which had been surrounding the building for several months. None of my flatmates were even in the city at the time and so could not have been responsible. Without informing us, they simply charged us for a second clean, lock change and bed from our deposits.

  After writing to them and calling them many times I was put through to somebody senior who was immensely rude, called me, ‘disgusting’ and said that they were well within their rights to charge us for anything as we had supposedly damaged the flat in ways which had not been considered problems during the final assessment.

  I was going to take them to the small claims court, however in the end I didn’t due to the length of time this would have taken and the general disruption it would have brought. It would have taken around a year before we could secure a date at court. I feel that they generally get away with this kind of thing simply because it is a lot of hassle for tenants to take them to court. Since this, I have warned family and friends against Grant Management, they simply aren’t worth it.
• 

  Peter Grant | September 8th, 2009 @ 4:04 pm

  Hi

  As promised I’m happy to share the feedback from all our current tenants, when I emailed them asking if there were any serious or frustrating problems to be escalated to me.

  I had a total of 9 problems highlighted, which we have now jumped on and sorted. Based on 1,850 flats and houses that’s 0.5%.

  Put another way we have 99.5% clients who are happy (or at least not unhappy).

  Of the problems which were highlighted to me, I’ve had nothing but positive feedback and praise from tenants and parents about us solving their escalated problems quickly. In fairness I’ve uncovered that we were not always giving the name of the contractor for a repair to the tenants (now solved). We will make this go automatically, so no human error can creep in.

  Hopefully that helps show that the service we now give is indeed good. As always, I’m keen for feedback and this can come to me direct at pg2@grantmanagement.co.uk

  Peter
• 

  Peter Grant | September 8th, 2009 @ 4:22 pm

  Hi

  As promised, I am happy to share the results of my email to our current tenants asking them to email me with any serious or unresolved problems in their flat/ house.

  I received a total of 9 issues, all of which we have now acted on. Given we have 1,850 flats and houses under management, that represents 0.5%. Put another way we have 99.5% of tenants who are happy (or at least not unhappy).

  This is a lower number that even I could have reasonably expected, and goes a long way to showing that the team we employ today are doing a good job.

  As always, if you have any feedback or problems, let me know by emailing me direct – pg2@grantmanagement.co.uk

  Peter
• 

  Huntley Wells | September 9th, 2009 @ 9:53 pm

  As parents of a Student in a flat in Glasgow for the past two years, we’ve had various issues with Grant Management since Move-in. Not prepared to air all the dirty laundry here – but found this forum while searching for people who were experiencing similar problems.
  On reading some of the messages posted – found Peter Grant’s contact email address – yes, all you cynical people (that included me to begin with) it is Peter Grant’s email address.
  Fired a quick email off and got a settlement to our complaints well within ten days.
  So if you’re getting the run around from various departmental staff and you’ve got a Genuine complaint – email Peter Grant at pg2@grantmanagement.co.uk – it does work…!!
• 

  Peter Grant | September 26th, 2009 @ 6:32 pm

  Hi Guys

  We have just gone through our busiest time of year. That can result in some delays. That said I openly post my email address so that if there is any serious problem, you can escalate it direct to me (pg2@grantmanagement.co.uk).

  I don’t have any issues outstanding (ie all which have been escaled to me are now either resolved or are being resolved).

  We are about to come into what is our quietest time of the year, now.

  As a bit of general feedback, even at our busiest point I probably get c 2 issues escalated to me per week. Given, my emal address is widely circulated to all 6,000 current tenants, and is available in Facebook, Twitter and other sites, there is no reason why serious or lingering problems can’t be escalated to me.

  Fnally, we have had a problem with our telephone system this past wk. Around 50% of our extensions have been down, so appologies to anyone having a problem in getting through. Should be back working Monday.

  P
• 

  Annonymous | September 29th, 2009 @ 4:04 pm

  Unproffesional company, just recently attempted to charge us for a full replacement of basically everything and when we expressed an interest in of course disputing this.. 3 days after informing us of any claimed debt (of course by phone and nothing by post) they passed it to debt collectors who began phoning relatives impersonating friends and even claiming to be the inland revenue. I am disgusted with the way Grant Management handled this completely avoiding the TDS protection scheme who should be used in situations like this to allow both sides the ability to at least speak (unlike a certain employee in the GM credit department who was incredibly rude from the offset) This sort of situation just makes me feel sad about the state of UK laws when agents can behave like this and collectors can clearly disregard Ofcom guidelines and UK laws. Just wish I had threatened GM the way they have us when we were still tenants, the number of things we had to complain about was near endless and nothing was ever done, don’t let them get away with it. Just wish I had been more informed before deciding to go with GM, for all new tenants ask for your TDS certificate because no doubt they didn’t hand it out, you can then check out when / if your deposit was registered with the scheme and if it wasn’t within 14 days (like ours wasn’t) of the start of your tenancy you can be awarded upto 3 times the amount you gave them (thats a fair few beers for all you students.. which is everyone that rents from GM right? )
• 

  Dawn Boaden | October 13th, 2009 @ 3:19 pm

  Peter Grant is a hypocritical slime ball. All that guff about contacting him on his personal email is so much bull.
  My son has been trying to sort out problems since MAY. He has contact Peter the Great directly, he has contacted the Birmingham office and still no joy. He gave his keys in 6 weeks ago and guess what – still no deposit has been returned.
  He seems to have lost interest in Facebook and the other complaint sites that litter the web. We were treated to the company ‘spin’ and expected to just roll over and say ‘that’s alright then’. Well it is not alright!!
  Peter Grant – fulfil the promises and SORT IT OUT!!
  To anyone considering a GM property – please don’t – it’s just a load of grief!!
• 

  Annoymous | October 15th, 2009 @ 3:31 pm

  Hi everyone I’ve recently had trouble with GM and we complained to watchdog thinking it was probably wasted effort but we had a missed call from them the other day and they wanted to speak to us because they are collecting evidence against Can’t Management as we like to call them so maybe submit all your issues to the watchdog website as I’m sure they would love to hear from you. Good luck escaping your GM properties
• 

  Dawn Boaden | October 22nd, 2009 @ 11:21 am

  Peter Grant is on holiday at the moment so we have been given a new contact. debbie.rummens@grantmanagement.co.uk she is the new MD of Property Management.
  Hope that helps.
  However, it must be said that she hasn’t sorted out our problems yet – time will tell!!
• 

  Debbie Rummens | October 31st, 2009 @ 2:02 am

  Hi, I joined Grant Management 8 weeks ago, in the role of Managing Director (Letting/Property Management). I come with 27 years experience in Letting and Property Management. GM have come a long way in the last 12 months, by investing hugely in computer and communication technology, staff training and development, at a time when the majority of companies have only cut back. This enables us to react much quicker to tenant issues, and communicate much better throughout. I have asked Miss Boaden (above) to confirm the issues she raised were addressed by GM, and communicated back fully, within 5 days.
• 

  Dawn Boaden | November 2nd, 2009 @ 9:49 am

  Hi Debbie, Have you really? I have had no communication from you at all!
• 

  Anno | November 2nd, 2009 @ 2:01 pm

  Typical grant management theres now another name and contact for you to go through so you can repeat all your problems only to find them ignored again.. give up Dawn they are and always will be useless.. sadly most companies are
• 

  Craig McAndrews | November 4th, 2009 @ 6:31 pm

  Hi there. I’m a fresh student who moved to manchester to go to university thinking i had made the right choice to move to a private rented house with grant management so i would have a quieter environment in which i could seriously tackle the academia. unfortunately things didn’t go as I’ve had so many problems and are STILL having problems that i can’t begin to work properly because it’s so stressful trying to deal with the company. I would STRONGLY discourage anybody from letting a property from Grant Management.

  They are currently telling me that I am responsible for a mistake they made months ago that (typically) I had no previous knowledge of until today, when (again typically) they told me over the phone.

  My solicitor has advised me that to take legal action and to get any correspondence in writing instead of over the phone and I recommend that anybody else in a similar situation should do the same.

  Craig
• 

  Patrick George | November 20th, 2009 @ 3:13 pm

  Am so glad to have found this page! Grant management are a complete waste of time, they are now planning to hold our deposits for over the legal fortnight period that they can keep it, on top of that, when i first moved into the property in bristol, it was filthy, the front room was covered in dead flies, the bathroom was disgusting, and there was even a used condom out the back garden! we had people round viewing the property with absolutely no warning whatsoever! they also tried to overcharge us rent by £100, and would refuse to tell us why. They are a complete waste of time!!! we need to get them on watchdog!!
• 

  John | November 21st, 2009 @ 4:28 pm

  I think the only people who win with Grant Management are Grant Management. We’ve been letting our flat with this company and they have consistently accosted us with spurious charges, unsubstantiated by receipts and deducted without any consultation, and very poor administration. When they eventually admitted fault it took more than 4 months to recoup our losses, during which time they were happily receiving the interest on our money. This month we received literally a few pence in rental income after they’d deducted the maximum they possibly could without justification! They are also in breach of our Landlord’s contract. I’d strongly recommend any potential landlords to avoid this company. My sympathies to any tenants who have to deal with these people.
• 

  anthony | December 3rd, 2009 @ 1:15 am

  crap agency, crap staff, crap management!
• 

  fiona | December 10th, 2009 @ 2:09 pm

  I heartily agree with John’s comment. Both owners and tennants are victims of Grant Management. My son has had the same experience of overcharging and unecessary, uninvoiced, unauthorised work and no rent left at the end of the month. Even the lease was set up without him seeing or signing it and without any consultation on tenants or the term. I could go on and on. We are trying to end the management agreement on grounds that they have breached the contract and have sent a solicitors letter to that effect. They are now telling the tenants (who are very good) they aren’t allowed to stop paying the rent to them as they have signed an agreement with them (this is rubbish as they are only our agents in law) but the poor tenants are worried don’t know which way to go….. Seems to be their modus operandi.
  Don’t, don’t, don’t go near this lot unless you want a lot of sleepless nights.
• 

  Craig | December 11th, 2009 @ 12:57 pm

  Hello,

  I too have been having problems with Grant Management. I recently moved out of one of their properties (in Bristol, was at UWE around the same time that the problems with them started/were first brought up). When I moved in I made dam sure that i took photos of things such as the garden, the walls etc. When we moved out, I did the exact same thing to avoid being charged for things that I should not have been. I constantly had to deal with Carole-Anne Burnette who always took at least 3 weeks to reply to any of my emails/mail and so on. Over christmas our washing machine packed up and we were without a washing machine for nearly two months. I emailed/mailed/called grant management on several occasions to sort this out. Finally the new washing machine showed up but I didnt drop the issue. I wrote a scathing letter to them and after 3 weeks of waiting I recieved a few emails/letters from them. However, they insisted that I provide receipets from having to go to the laundrette. I told them that they were patronising and treating us like idiots and that it was a ridiculous request. To which Carole replied “we can no longer engage in any further correspondance with you”.

  Anyway, after moving out I stumbled upon a “Peter Grant” commenting about how he was the MD or something, so I fired him an email and he actually got back to me very quickly and told me he was passing my info onto their new MD of Customer Service, Debbie Rummens. Needless to say, I told Debbie that I was disputing our deposit return because of the charges etc etc, and she said she would look into them for me. Once she had done so, she came back stating that she had looked at the “move out videos” and that she supported Carole’s decision. I told her I wanted to see the videos so I could make an honest assessment for myself based against what they had recorded. Anyway, I had to chase them up two weeks later to get the videos, and guess what, the person Debbie had asked to send the videos (probably Carole), never did. Sounds like her usual work really. Anyway, once I got the videos, I was ready to make my counter judgment based upon what evidence I had (pictures, neighbours, phone logs, receipts etc) and detailed this all into an email for Debbie. This was in late September. I have since had to chase her I believe about 8 times, this past week emailing her every day to get her to send the response she would “send on Tuesday”. Yesterday, I told her if I didnt hear from her on Friday, I would be taking them to small claims.

  Anyway, I would like to please ask anyone who has been in Bristol and dealt with these people to please contact me (craigmkennedy@hotmail.com), and hopefully if you have taken record of everything they have sent you/you have sent them I can use as back up to my claims about their complete lack of competence and unwillingness to resolve any issues and of course, if you are wanting to take the same action, I would be more than willing to help out/provide you with evidence to show how incompetent and useless they are. I think it is imperative that something is done about them because, despite what some people have said ^^ about 1% being acceptable for complaints for a company of “that size”, it isn’t. Granted every company will at some stage have complaints, however, if I were ever to receive a complaint on the business that I run, I would seek to actively rectify that complaint immediately and resolve it to the best of my ability. I would never dream of taking 3 weeks + to reply to any complaints, nor would I not respond to emails/requests etc, particularly when my clients have evidence to suggest that I am in the wrong.

  I have also submitted my complaints to BBC watchdog, so hopefully when they receive enough complaints they will pursue this matter to.

  Craig
• 

  Anonymous | January 22nd, 2010 @ 1:39 pm

  My partner and I have had an a terrible time with Grants Management.

  1. We we’re charged £250 administration fee just to move in, yet had to collect our own references, and once moved in we we’re asked to take an inventory of the place on thier behalf as they had ‘misplaced’ thiers. I’d be facinated to know how they justify this fee.

  2. The first months rent came out on the wrong day, rather than contact us they automatically took the full amount of my debit card, which resulted in bank charges amounting to over £150.

  3. My partner and I were given one fob down the downstairs car park, when I asked for another I was advised that it would cost me £80. We subsequently ordered one off the proptery factors for £25.

  4. We have had various letters informing us that an agent would be round to conduct an inspection of the property, which we advised that we would like to be present for, and have waited in for no one showing up.

  5. The flat is a new build, which particularly shoddy fixtures and fittings, all of the inner walls of the property have receded from the ceiling by approximately 3 inches, causing drafts and escaping heat, we have informed them on numerous occaisions about this and they have done nothing.

  The staff, when contacted come across as overly informal, poorly trained and generally quite uninterested in developing good cutomer relations with us. When pressed for resolution to our issues Grant’s have disregarded and ignored us. We could understand if they we’re busy and forgot tto call us back on an occasion or two, but we have been consistantly confronted with both disinterest and non conformance.

  We look forward to cutting ties with GM and will be informing our friends and family of our experience with them.

  We will also be submitting a complaint to BBC watchdog.
• 

  Concerned parent | February 10th, 2010 @ 12:37 am

  If everyone got in touch with all the accredited organisations that GM are members of, letting them know of the “service” they are receiving hopefully they would cancel any membership as they must be breaking all agreements and conditions of holding membership, and also contact HBOS who “kindly” gave them money to buy these sub standard properties with the sole reason of renting them out, there must be some legal issues there.
  To get money from HBOS an any other investors, the original proposals must be fabrications, the same applying to all the organisations that give them credibility by allowing membership.
• 

  Charlie farrally | March 23rd, 2010 @ 1:24 pm

  Hello.

  This website was recently brought to my attention and I found the following comments of interest.;

  “We used to have someone called Charlie Farrally who worked in lettings, but he left us two years ago… could it have been that long back? Blonde Hair. Big guy…….Apart from wanting to root our poor service “neds”,…….”

  As these are somewhat defamatory in nature I would certainly invite an apology to them as I understand I am entitled to do. I shall await that in due course. However, whilst I await a response I would like to draw the collective attention to some points of interest.

  The regulation of housing in the private sector is achieved through the Housing (Scotland) act 2006. The majority of issues arising during a tenancy concern repairs. This is covered in section 13 of the act in what is known as the Repairing Standard. Any breach offers a remedy. this can best be effected by contacting the Private Sector Renting Panel who are a statutory body regulated themselves by Schedule 2 of the same act. They can be contacted at;

  Private Rented Housing Panel
  3rd Floor
  140 West Campbell Street
  Glasgow G2 4TZ
  Tel: 0141 572 1170
  Fax: 0141 572 1171
  Email: admin@prhpscotland.gov.uk

  Remedies do take time but not as long as you might think. I would recommend them if you have a repair issue.

  The second issue most people have concern deposits. If you have an issue with the return of a deposit this should, and can, be resolved with dialogue between the tenant and the landlord/agency. However there is no point “flogging a dead horse” in some cases. If you have had no success I would strongly encourage you to seek free legal advice. Go to the Citizens advice bureau and commence proceedings there. For tenants in glasgow I can recommend the Strathclyde Law clinic which is free. They have good experience dealing with housing issue and regularly represent Students in the courts.

  The normal plan is a letter from them as a third party with legal expertise highlighting the issue, and if this fails there is always recourse to the small claims courts. The small claims courts are cheap and fast (in legal terms) and if you have a case expect it to be called and settled within a several months. Again, if the money is significant the wait is worth it.

  I should finish by saying that in most cases at the heart of this there is often just a simple breakdown of communication, or misunderstanding of right. I would urge all parties to seek a compromise and continue with dialogue that is constructive. No one truly wins when it gets to court as, although you may receive your financial costs back, you will find that it does take time and patience (don’t be put off if you have a good case and the desire, but be aware of the timeframe, and energy required) The code of conduct for people who work for a letting agent is firstly, a contractual obligation to work in your employers best interests, secondly to represent your landlords and finally to fulfill a duty of care to your tenants. It is the last point that often causes the problems. For myself I always felt that it was the most important.

  Regards,

  Charlie farrally
• 

  Chris Hamilton | March 23rd, 2010 @ 1:35 pm

  Hi Charlie,

  Thanks for stopping by, and supplying some good information.

  In regards to the comment. It was left by Peter Grant himself and I would suggest you speak to him regarding an apology for the statement. I however, will edit your name out of his comment right now.
• 

  Charlie farrally | March 23rd, 2010 @ 1:43 pm

  Dear Chris,

  I would be happy for my name to remain in the comments until such time as an apology arrives. Don’t worry you are protected legally from any concerns only until you are made aware of the comments and then you have to act. As I am here stating that I do not mind them remaining until, lets say an apology, or three weeks from now, until then you have no obligation to remove them. It would be a measure of good faith if an apology was given, don’t you think?

  Kind regards,
• 

  Chris Hamilton | March 23rd, 2010 @ 1:47 pm

  Hi Charlie,

  I can re-add your name to Peter Grant’s original comment should you wish me to.

  In regards to an apology, I can and do apologise for not removing your name immediately from the comment. I do however, think you should speak to Peter Grant and ask for an apology for making the comment in the first place.
• 

  J | April 19th, 2010 @ 4:18 pm

  I’m a first year student in Northumbria, living in Newcastle.
  Unfortunately, I was thrust into a GM house against my own will, if you like.
  Being that Northumbria student halls filled up quickly and me going through clearing, I had no option but to attend a ‘flat finding’ day a week before semester started.
  This flat finding day itself was a nightmare. I do NOT blame my university for this house and my situation, as clearly they aren’t too aware of the complete hassle and uproar which GM cause THOUSANDS of students every year, perhaps every day.
  So I was offered ONE house: a grotty 6 bed house in Newcastle 2 miles from the centre.
  Me and two of my five housemates listed a catologue of complaints. For instance;

  1. A TINY fridge/freezer between six people which caused several rows and tension because nothing would damn well fit in. We complained in the first week, and at least six times afterwards. They ignored it. It then went on to three of our parents calling non-stop for a week. It took them a whole week of either fobbing us off or promising us one, to then finally saying “we have assessed the appliances and furniture in ALL of our houses and find them all to be suitable and in some cases ample sized for a house of that number of students”. Absolute b*****ds (for want of a better word…)

  2. Floorboards have cracks in and arent properly fitted together

  3. Massive, HUGE patch of damp in the living room which gave all six of us chest infections for a good 3 weeks. We complained about this in SEPTEMBER 2009…it wasn’t rectified until FEBRUARY…and bear in mind, we were never informed of this!!! Seriously, my housemate came home one day to find 2 men just waltzing into our house and began pushing furniture aside and hammering away at the walls with NO explanation! It took 2 weeks to complete and when they left, it was a complete state. Dust everywhere, living room ironically UNLIVABLE. We rang several times during the day and got no answers, so went down to the office where some idiotic pathetic excuses of employees where sat playing on facebook looked doe-eyed at us and told us to get out some Flash and a mop. Ridiculous. It was only when my housemates father rang up furious (and he’s not a very nice calm man!) before they said “luckily we have potential tennants coming in next week, we will send round some industrial cleaners”. Why the HELL should we have EVER cleaned up mess we did not make?! Hopefully they will not take this out of our deposit at the end of our tennancy, or s**t will seriously hit the fan.

  4. We’ve had contractors (you can’t even call them that really, they’re common as ever cowboys doing hotch potch jobs and probably advertise their services as the local greasy spoon on the back of used napkins) come round measuring the front door and windows advising us we will be getting brand new double glazed PVC windows in 2 weeks time (double glazed PVC is one of the little luxuries in life which goes unappreciated until you live in the sespit which I do)…SURPRISE SURPRISE…Grant Management are good at one thing I suppose – LETTING YOU DOWN and leading you into FALSE PROMISES. We never got those windows did we? We all just shiver from the draft and stifle in the heat when none of the blasted things open!

  5. We have exposed pipes and wires in the kitchen. Right by the sink of course. It would take a piece of mdf to cover it up. Grant Management, you’re truly outdoing yourselves here for being the most incompetent LAZY ‘team’ I know.

  6. There’s a huge crack leading from the upstairs bedroom to the parrallel downstairs bedroom…We had these mysterious men visit us again, telling us what needs doing (and no doubt never will be done) and they mentioned that this whole wall would need ripping out. HOW CONVENIENT! It’s rotting, crumbling and is soft to touch, but GM never though to replace this before we moved in, and yet they almost revel in the fact that we, amongst thousands of unhappy tennants are miserable and fear that the very important structure of the house, a fundamental wall, could collapse at any time.

  7. My housemate had a crack appear in her window, through no fault of her own – it certainly doesn’t open so how could it be her fault? It was replaced in shortly due time for once, but as soon as it was fitted, they SMASHED it and left it! It took more angry phonecalls from her father before they bothered to do anything about it. Not to mention, they just came in early one morning whilst she was sleeping, no knock on her door and just began to fix! With NO regard to her privacy!

  There’s an endless list believe you me. My housemate has a much more detailed account, but these are the ones that stand out to me. I really tried to hold back there from throwing out MANY various expletives about the useless, good for nothing, rubbish, incompetent, pathetic, understaffed timewasters at GM.

  It’s sad that they have caused so much upset and uproar between students and professionals and career men and women alike.

  I’ve signed a contract next year for a lovely apartment on the quayside, through what I hope will be a much more reliable and trustworthy letting agency. I’m still yet to find bad reviews on them. Fingers crossed I won’t.

  I’ve advised nearly everybody I know in Newcastle to go nowhere near GM. So Peter Grant, you can shove it, because as far as I’m concerned you, and your smarmy useless team are not worthy of being employeed to represent a letting agency, as a home is meant to be a person’s most valued thing, somewhere where they feel safe and comfortable. Well congratulations because you and your disgusting company have done nothing of the sort for your tennants, and you continue to turn a blind eye, never sincerely apologetic, and clearly this company is growing too big for your miniscule team to handle. I’m sure in the coming years GM will dwindle in tennats, and hopefully you will go out of business as this seems the only way that people can completely avoid you and the mess and stress you cause people.
• 

  J | April 19th, 2010 @ 4:21 pm

  p.s. my housemate downstairs has subsidence at one half of her room
  cannot wait to leave this hellhole. and that’s me being kind.
• 

  LM | July 3rd, 2010 @ 9:25 pm

  Hey,

  Just wanted to leave a comment to say that Grant Management are just as bad to work for as they are to rent from! I worked there are part of the “move-in” team between summer 2005 to February 2007. They treat staff just as poorly as their tenants.

  The problem they have is they only value their landlords – doing everything possible to keep them happy, usually at the expense of the tenants.

  The majority of the staff there at the time were so process-focussed they had no common sense whatsoever. Only myself and a couple of the sales team would go completely above and beyond to help tenants with absolutely no recognition for it.

  The company are a complete disgrace.

  I would recommend that anyone who has a problem with the company writes to ARLA (landlord association) as Grant Management are extremely proud of this award however they can be discredited if enough noise is heard about the company.

  Another point – the owners, Peter and Collette Grant, are very private about their mail and don’t have even their PAs open letters addressed to them so if you write directly to them, marking it “Private and Confidential”, they will at least read your complaints!

  Good luck with those of you still having problems with the company!

  LM
• 

  J S | August 5th, 2010 @ 4:43 pm

  Recent dealings with this company have convinced me they it be considered untrustworthy and deceitful. In their dealings with tenants they seem to be judge jury and executioner, applying admin charges onto accounts for the slightest suspicion of breaches in the tenancy even when it is not proven. What do the tenants get for their £25 charge? Has anyone considered using the Unfair Contracts Act 1977 against this company and their agents?
• 

  simon | August 5th, 2010 @ 5:51 pm

  yeah ive just finished my contract with Grant Management, i thought they were terrible, they are only giving us back £300 out of £1200 of our deposit back, even though they stated the house was left in a very clean and tidy condition.
  Apparently we left the garden overgrown, where in actual fact it was like that when we arrived, so why should we leave it in any better condition than they left it to us??
  We some how created the damp marks that were also already there before us, they just covered them up with furniture, so that we did not see them before we moved in.
  They left us with a leak over our electric box for over two months, which im sure is a breach of health and safety, but they didnt really care.
  i could go on for ages, but i wont, except to say that even though we “left the house in a very tidy and clean condition” they still had a “professional cleaner” come in to clean the house, which they paid them £18 per hour, and then sent us the invoice.
  I have actually gone back to house because it just so happens i know the new tenants, and they haven’t cleaned it at all, they have just sent us the invoice and taken out of our deposit, which i’m sure is against the fair trading standards?
• 

  Alex | August 10th, 2010 @ 10:50 am

  I recommend to find house use Edinburgh Landlord. Itself, when I was in Edinburgh I often use this agent