Stonehouse Properties will try and add things to your agreement AFTER you have signed the contract!

Two days after we moved into our flat, we received a letter from Stonehouse Properties. It said "if you request a repair man, but he/she can't find a fault, we will bill you for the callout".

Think about this for a second, how many times has something in your flat been playing up, but on the day the person came to have a look everything was fine? In my old flat there would be lots of problems that you knew were there, and would come and go seemingly randomly, but were often never there when the bloody repair man came to have a look! My old landlord to his credit would at least give us the benefit of the doubt, and not immediately assume we were trying to waste his time. Stonehouse properties however do not see things this way.

We threw the letter away. We have a copy of our contract and know what we have agreed to. Stonehouse properties may think they can just make things up as they go along but the truth is they cannot.

A few months later one of our household appliances started playing up. Naturally when the repair man came to have a look everything was working ok. So a week later we received a bill for the callout.

I phoned Stonehouse Properties and told their answer machine (they aren't very good at answering their phone) that there was no clause in our contract where we had agreed to pay these sorts of charges, and unless they could provide us with a signed copy of our contract saying we would pay this they would not receive a penny from us. Strangely they never contacted us again about this charge......

Stonehouse Properties can't spell!

I was amused when I read my 'contract' from Stonehouse Properties. It was littered with spelling mistakes and things that just didn't make any sense.

The people that work there do seem a bit slow on the uptake and don't seem to understand things very well. Things like misspellings (stonehouse's contract informs me that my flat has a 'micwave') are just funny, but others are a bit worrying. Apparently if I don't pay my rent they will charge me 3% interest. I asked the man with the beard what this meant in a bid to test his overall intellectual ability. Based upon his answer it occurred to me that he simply did not understand how interest worked. Because of this it worries me that if anyone ever did miss their monthly payment rent payment for any legitimate reason (not getting a student loan in time perhaps) Stonehouse would completely mess up their 'fine' and charge them a ridiculous amount. Perhaps 3% of the whole rent payment rather than a payment based upon 3% over an entire year (which is how interest actually works Mr Man with Beard).

Stonehouse properties

Hello

This blog is about my experience renting from Stonehouse Properties in Leeds

To be continued..............