agent is a cnut

jaggeh

i moved into a place on the 26th of march, with two other guys. they both signed their lease on the same day, and rather than wait for me to sign aswell the agent sent it off to the landlord, then he claimed the postal strike slowed everything down............roll on may, when i finally got my lease to sign, next problem...

i never got a set of keys, the day i signed my lease the agent was supposed to drop them into the apartment, he never did but said they would be there the next day. he never turned up. now add a month and a half of badgering the agent for the keys, cumulating in 1 night.

2pm
me: any chance i can get those keys today.
him: ill drop them over at 7 because im definatly passing by there tonight.
me: grand see you at 7.

7:01pm
me: its just passing seven now arte you on your way or what?
him: ill definatly be there between now and eight, i got delayed...
me: fair enough, see you soon.

8:20pm
me: hello, helloooo, hello?
him: no answer cos my number has been put onto divert
me(on a different phone): Hello?
him: i said id be over sometime tonight, im on my way over now im currently near stephens green.
me: sigh, all right.

10pm
his phone now no longer seems to be answering to us at all so i ring the agencies 24 hour number
me: can you get him to call me please
her: right away

10:45pm
him: i dont appreciate you calling the office and getting them to ring me, that number is for emergencies only
me: look, i had plans to go out tonight which have been scuppered because you have made and failed to carry out time after time a promise to give me my keys which im entitled to.
him: well i said id be over some time tonight it might be now or it might be after midnight i dont know, but when you get up in the morning the keys will definatly be in your letter box. and its not my fault you cant go out, you should be doing what you have been doing for the last few months whatever your arrangement with the other guys has been.
(flatmate in background): wtf why isnt he here yet
him: whats with this screeching, im after receiving a noise complaint which i have to talk to you guys about ill be around tomorrow to have a chat, but your keys wil definatly be there in the morning.
me: right whatever see you tomorrow.

the keys are still nowhere to be found 2 weeks later, the noise complaint was fictitious.....

is there anyone to complain to (other than the actual landlord) about agents?
am i being treated unfairly, i really dont know my rights as a tenant to well as its the first time ive lived away from home.

seamus

Get keys cut from the other lads' sets.

Take it out of the rent.

Sleepy

Ring the office and complain about yer man. From the sounds of it he's an employee so at the least you'll get him a bollocking.

irlirishkev

As already mentioned, get the keys cut yourself. I'm not sure about taking the money out of the rent though, it might just wind up the Landlord. Defo let him know you've been messed about though. It's in his interest that tenants are kept happy.

Write a letter to the agency complaining. A written letter of complaint always gets further than giving someone a b*llocking down the phone.
Too many agencies get away with that sort of crap. They get their commission, then don't give a rats ass about anything afterwards.

Kevin.

jaggeh

getting the actual apartment keys isnt a problem, however the building key cant be cut as i asked around ages ago, its a specialist key, id have to send it to the company that makes it costing around 40 euro to get it cut. and it says in the lease that i cant take money from the rent

2.7 Not to reduce any payment of rent by making any deductions from it or by setting any sum off against it.

Imposter

If it's an apartment block he might not be able to get the keys cut himself (unless he knows someone who's handy with a grinder).

Edit: I seem to be posting just after someone else said the same thing all day today.

Victor

Is the agent an estate agent or auctioneer by any chance? It's quite possible you could complain to the IAVI or SCS, depending on which they are members of.

However write to the agent first so that you can say you have given them a chance.

Keep a diary.

PM me the agent and agenciy's name Jag.

Ry

Posted in two parts because it's so long sorry.

This IS a long one but do read it because you'll be surprised how unprofessional people can be.

During your read of this you may get a little confused about who is who since I have not named any companies or people and so here is a key of who people are in this as to how they are mentioned.

Block Managers: The company who own and look after the complete block of apartments we live in.

The Agency: The company our landlord deals with to manage our apartment for him so he hasn't the hassles.

The Agent: The actual person who manages our particular apartment for the agency.

Jaggeh: Jaggeh

Me: Me

Xithus: Another board member and is the third member of our little trio who live here.


I am one of the three chaps living in the apartment and the agency has been hell to deal with from the outset. Theagent we deal with has been nothing but trouble and unprofessional since we first met. First of all we recieved a noise complaint 3 days after moving in which went to the block managers whom contacted the agency who threatened that one more would mean our eviction. Now we hadn't received any notice of the complaint due to not having any post box access since we still had not received a key from the agent. Another point to mention is that the complaint was made during the period that we were moving in and hadn't settled in at all. About 2 to 3 weeks later another complaint was made about noise which this time we can't understand at all considering we became super anal about cancelling out noise as soon as the clock hit 10pm and on hearing from our Agent about that one we actually found that the "HOUSE" rules on the apartment block we're set by the block managers is that no noise is to be audible after 12am and we'd been sticking to 10pm so we figured someone had it in for us and we explained this and they let us be. The complaint was due to someone moving around furniture like a bed or something like this. When contacted by the agent he said that having a bed in the living room was a serious breach of contract. This bed was in the living room in the
corner for Jaggeh since we decided to use it as his bedroom. There is also nothing in the contract to say anything against this. Since then we have tested the apartment for sound and reverb around it and it turns out sound is travelling due to the lack of carpets on the hall way and in the main living room since it's all tiled. I spoke to the Caretaker and he said that yes that would be a huge contributor to the travel of sound through walls and floors etc because any little sound on it would travel through. My bedroom and Xithus' are both carpeted and the dampening is much more effective. I also read that in the "House" Rules all apartments must be carpeted to sufficiently dampen sound which ours is not. With this information I went to our agents and notified them of these points to which I was told "well there's no way the tiles will be removed they're brand new tiles they cost a fortune.." I suggested rugs or some other form of covers since something had to be done and was told by the agent, "Well possibly...I'll contact the landlord and ask him". No word back after a few weeks so I contacted them again and was told that the landlord had said he'd consider it. That matter is still up in the air.

Another point. Recently when Jaggeh was battling to get his keys on yet another night the agent had told us he would arrive with them at 7-8pm (Which
happened on Various occasions previously but he had not shown up) though 9:50pm had come and was passing rapidly when Jaggeh decided he'd had enough and rang the agency to ask where the hell the agent was only to be told by the receptionist he would receive a call shortly from the agent himself. He did receive a
call as mentioned by him in his post earlier in this topic and was barrated for contacting the agency about the matter at that time of night. Jaggeh told him he had been waiting weeks if not months and it had become rediculous to which the agent came back with more "fob offs" and the like such as "being really busy and simply forgetting". Meanwhile myself and xithus and one of our friends were watching the England vs Portugal football match because our friend had money riding on the outcome. We are not football fans but we did want to see if our friend would get his money so naturally on the final scoring of the last penalty (which for those of you who watched it should remember was a great moment) we cheered because it meant our friend had won a nice sum of money. The agent heard us cheer and it seems decided that because he was in a bad mood at us having rang the agency directly to get the keys, he would take that out on us. I overheard jaggeh explaining why we had cheered and then jaggeh told me that the agent was saying we were braking the rules again about noise yet the time WAS only 9:55pm at this point and I took note of this because it meant we hadn't even passed the House rules time of 12am nor our own set time of 10pm so I decided to step in. I took the phone with the aim of just settling it there and then saying we'd talk to him tomorrow. On putting the phone to my ear I said the following:

Me: "Hello (Agent's name)

Agent: "Hello whatever your name is" (having recognised my voice sounding agitated)

Me: Don't worry I'm not going to eat the head of you or anything (trying to calm the situation and make light of it)

Agent: Don't even TRY to eat the head of me! (In a very backed into a corner kind of tone. All it was missing was a cat like hiss)

Me: I just wanted to clear up this matter of us having just broken the rules apparently?

Agent: I heard you clearly shouting. It was so loud I had to take the phone away from my ear!

Me: It was a once off because we were just watching the football and portugal won. WE don't even watch football I can assure you it was a once off. Plus it's not even 10pm yet.

Agent: Well It sounds quite obvious that you ARE breaking the rules and I will have to take action on this. I'm just leaving hospital you can't be calling me at this time. (Clearly just exaggerating and jumping on the bandwagon because he has been contacted about the keys at an inappropriate time due to his own lack of care that the keys got to us.)

Then he tells me that they have also recieved another complaint from the apartment block managers of Shouting and shrieking coming from our apartment regularly. I tell him that this is rediculous because that doesn't go on and I ask him shall we be receiving another letter from the apartment block managers just as we did for the previous 2 complaints he tells us yes and that something will have to be done. The conversation ends there and we expect some form of contact about it the following day. That was nearly two weeks ago and we have still not received a letter from the block managers so it SEEMS that he has made this complaint up simply because he was in a bad mood again very unprofessional and basically childish. Another thing to take into account is that all this time we've had 2 complaints and a third we are yet to hear more about when no one has any proof we are making noise whatsoever yet we're being threatened with eviction just because someone made 2 complaints. I myself have actually gone to the trouble of buying headphones with special features so that I can watch dvd's or whatever in full 5.1 sound even at night. I've taken these measures BECAUSE of the complaints made. Is it that easy to make someone homeless these days by just complaining a couple of times?

Continued on part 2

Ry

Another matter was that of the electricity bill. On moving in we were supposed to get the meter readings and pass them to the agent which we did. The agency were then SUPPOSED to contact ESB and have the account set up in my name so that we would recieve bills to our address and that would be that. Did it happen? No! After 3 months we hadn't recieved a bill in our name. We had however recieved one to a previous tenant but did not open it of course because it was not addressed to us and it's illegal to open other peoples post of course. They clearly hadn't put anything in our name so I contacted the agent to ask what the story was and he told me not to worry about that bill we had received and that it was all under control so I took their word for it and left it at that expecting a bill of our own to arrive sometime soon. Then after another few weeks having not received a bill I decided to contact the agent again and he told me to contact ESB (Which was his job to do in the first place). I contacted esb and sure enough the bill was still in the name of a previous tenant. (Thank you again agency for sitting on your arses doing nothing). So I told the ESB we wanted the account in my name and they told me to get the readings from when we moved in. I rang the agent and managed to get the meter readings and sorted that little mess out. We are currently expecting our first bill now in our fourth month of residence. Rediculous? I think so!

The next matter was that of a key to the post box. We had none on moving in and were told we would be posted it with the lease. A month or so went by without sight nor sound of the lease to which Jaggeh was to have his signature added but they dicked us around for that also as he has explained. Eventually after nearly 2 months of having no access to the postbox during which time we had been told of the noise complaint I mentioned earlier which we had been warned about but had no idea of since we couldn't access our postbox to receive the letter so that we could make ammends and yet were still threatened with eviction when it was our AGENTS fault we couldn't gain knowledge of it without the key, I again contacted the agent to try to get the key and apparently this time they did have it after a lot of blame was put down to the very brief postal strike WHICH by the way barely affected me in work where we regularly send out goods and products to people who have ordered them online, etc. We did receive it to find our phone bill already overdue in the postbox among a tonne of other letters for previous tenants. We had to plead with "the telephone company we all love" to give us time to get their money which they kindly did only to cut us off before the date they had agreed with us thank you very much "the telephone company we all love". I soon rectified this by giving them 5 different phonecalls to talk to 5 or 6 different people including various supervisors in many callcenters across the country and in total about 4 hours of my time on hold just to get through to Creditors section which was like reaching the Architect in the matrix because you finally got through to a rather Aged sounding woman who sounded very distant and faint to whom I pleaded my case and immediately on the simple ticking of a box on her screen we were reconnected as agreed weeks previously.

ANYWAY back to the matter at hand the agency we deal with are clearly one if not THE most unprofessional and badly run companies I've ever come across. The agent we deal with is undoubtedly playing us off against the landlord telling him we're making noise etc and that he's trying to deal with us while he tells us the Landlord has to "Consider" the laying down of rugs etc while the likelyhood is that he hasn't even been contacted about it. Our aim is to simply live in the apartment from day to day travel to work from it since it is very close to work come home and relax before the next day starts again. We have had troubles EVERY month on numerous occasions from the agent when it comes to one thing or the other. To be honest I think the fault is more the Agent rather than the agency. I've come to this conclusion because recently Jaggeh actually reached the manager of the company and she was very quick to help him get his keys. She found the keys that we had been told were in an envelope in the agent's desk gave it to jaggeh and that was that. At least until jaggeh opened the envelope and found they were not the right keys so it seems the agent had the intention of giving the wrong ones the whole time since he didn't even have the keys after telling us he had them. The manager of the company called the agent into the shop immediately since he was out on call and had him look for them. It turned out they weren't there and Jaggeh had to go to the block managers offices to get a key. Basically as soon as we talked to the manager something was done! So I can't knock her service one bit because it was impeccable. The same cannot be said however for the agent in question's service. I'm surprised he still has a job there to be honest. Has anyone any opinions or advice on this. Is there anything we can do to defend ourselves?

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Replies are very welcome.
Thanks.

Victor

Sounds like Mr. Agent is stressed out and his job is suffering.

The out of hours number was probably an answering service.

seamus

The complaints things sounds strange. Sounds like either an old crank who has nothing better to do, or someone who complains about the noise of the walking upstairs (and is asking the management company to do something about it), and they just pass it on to you, as a complaint against you.

The next time you receive a complaint (if you receive another one), claim that you were all out from 6pm to 6am that day (regardless of what you were doing). Then see what they say.

As Victor says, the out of hours number is probably an answering service, and the reason he's pissed off is because his boss will go through the messages on the Monday, preventing him from skiving off.

Ry

It's a 24 hour service basically where they've a receptionist on a phone 24 hours so if there IS something wrong we have someone we can call and I think the agent was peaved because he thought it might get back to his manager. But again I don't know really why he was but it definitely got him riled up enough to actually call us back.

Imposter

You could do as Seamus has said and claim not to be there at the time if at all possible.

Another approach would be to ask the Block managers to get the person(s) who is complaining of the noise to call the guards to ascertain as to whether or not there is inappropriate noise. Tell them that anyone can make spurious claims to this end and that if another complaint is made with no verifyable proof that you will be forced to take action against the person who has complained and possibly also the Block managers as they are entertaining this claim.

You could also find out who is making the complaints against you and do likewise to them. This is the childish option though and I reckon you'll get a far better result out of the one above. However if you had the cooperation of some more residents then this might be fun if nothing else

ionapaul

Rents are starting to come down and soon tenants will have the 'power' compared to the last few years. I lived in San Francisco during the dotcom rise and fall - rents rose and fell likewise, and within a few months of the dotcom bubble burst tenants could basically dictate to landlords for different things, reduced rents, etc...
Don't take any more crap from them, let them know you'll be out the door unless the service improves. You are the customer remember, there are lots of other apartments to look for and leaving it vacant for just one month really cuts into their margin.

JP Mulvano

Hmmm sounds extremely familiar to me. I had constant bad dealings with my apartment block. the management company and company I let the palce off happened to be the same company.

I went straight to the landlord told him of all the problems we had and now we have a new management company which unfortunately seems to be worse but at least it shows the landlords are willing to listen to tennats. I had threatened to move out at the time and I presume there were other complaints at the time.

As it happens the new management place is worse and I'm still leaving befire the lease.

So I guess the moral is to go straight to he landlord and be as forthcoming and accurate as you can.

Georgiana

Jaggeh

I know you've had an awful time - but did you consider taking up writing - you have material for an article or a short story or a mini-drama !!