DNG lettings - beware tenants and landlords

eest

Worst Irish company I've dealt since 2005. I would rent other property if I knew what I will be going through.

Just few facts:

• Agent did not answer calls for days
• Drove from portmarnock to lucan for the first viewing appointment, spoke with agent couple hours in advance but when I met him there, he had no keys.
• Got my keys, paid deposit, signed contracts on Friday. On Saturday, loaded all my stuff and family onto the van, open the door... but landlord was there and never heard about us moving in on that day.
• Washing machine broke, reported it to agency, they sent a man to check, confirmed replacement has to be done, few days after learned that landlord never heard about it.
• Moved to another place but overpaid the last month accidentally. Two weeks passed but no refund, no deposit back, another person is living in the house. DNG keeps making excuses, not returning calls, etc.

All above seasoned with unreturned calls, unanswered emails and lies.

Treehouse72

My letting agents are equally incompetent. To the point that their unprofessionalism is almost unbelievable.

Not DNG.

Ste.phen

I wonder did any other country make it through a housing bubble without retaining half-decent accommodation standards and / or competent estate agents...?

eest

Rented good few times before, no problems, very nice landlords, helpful estate agents, etc. but this time it is shocking hence this post.

facksake

Did you know that they are actually a separate entity to the DNG group completely. I think they might get referrals but they aren't owned by the bosses of DNG. A friend of mine used to work for them - I found it kinda interesting

Just thought i'd point that out!

Zamboni

I actually lost the head with an idiot on the phone from DNG recently and I refuse to deal with them anymore.

Hello, I'd like to enquire about property x.
No problem, the agent is at a meeting/lunch/fapping but I will get him to call you back.

This gets repeated over and over until - Oh that property is actually gone.

eest

Zamboni wrote: »

This gets repeated over and over until - Oh that property is actually gone.

It started for me exactly like this. I had to ring him literally every half hour with voice messages and texts, etc. He had to help my landlord to find a tenant but he did his best to make sure it never happen

I know DNG is bigger than just DNG lettings and I appreciate DNG's good name but they have to do something with those muppets or at least call them differently.

eest

facksake wrote: »

A friend of mine used to work for them

Glad your friend is not working for them any more :rolleyes:

stoneruile

I have just found this thread as I searched for a thread about these guys on Boards. I have been trying to view a property for the last 2 weeks. I have called the agent on his mobile no less than ten times. The first five he answered and said I could view the property "tomorrow" and he would call back. Needless to say each day he never called back and left me waiting. After about a week of this he stopped answering my calls and wouldn't reply to Voice mails.

I called their office and explained the situation to them. They cut me off and put me through to the same guy while I was in mid sentence. He said he had the keys in his hands and would call me in the morning. I never got a call.

I left it for two more days. Still no call. So today i called the office and asked to speak to the agent in question. I was told he wasn't in the office. I explained the situation to the person on the phone and his response was "Well you won't be viewing it today. Sure it's a long weekend and we're on a half day."

If this is what they are like to view a place could you imagine what they are like as letting agents. Avoid these jokers like the plague!

djimi

Why on earth would you put that much effort into chasing a letting agent for a viewing? If they give you the runaround then walk away after a couple of days tops; you are the customer and there is no shortage of places out there to rent!

Jesus Shaves

Exactly, they should be jumping through hoops to give you a viewing

stoneruile

djimi wrote: »

Why on earth would you put that much effort into chasing a letting agent for a viewing? If they give you the runaround then walk away after a couple of days tops; you are the customer and there is no shortage of places out there to rent!

Well basically my current landlord wants to move back into his house. He has said that if we can get something sorted by the end of this week he will let us off a months rent. So it was important that i got something sorted by the end of this week. I wouldn't normally be that pushed.

odds_on

djimi wrote: »

Why on earth would you put that much effort into chasing a letting agent for a viewing? If they give you the runaround then walk away after a couple of days tops; you are the customer and there is no shortage of places out there to rent!

"He who falls in love with a property he wants to buy, is his own worst enemy".

Builderfromhell

Have been looking on Daft for new house to rent.
The houses rented privately have loads of photos and written details.

The houses for rent through agents have minimum photos and sometimes none and very basic info. I always have to ring an agent for info. like; does it have storage sheds, does it have a solid fuel stove? If they answer yes I wonder why they didn't write these things down as a selling point.

They could actually save themselves a lot of time by putting as much info. on ads as possible. It would save them having to answer phone and show people the houses when they were not suitable.

stoneruile

odds_on wrote: »

"He who falls in love with a property he wants to buy, is his own worst enemy".

Yeah it's a pity i am trying to rent the place and not buy. He who quotes out of context........

Chain_reaction

I haven't been a fan since having to deal with them in a professional capacity for a while a few years ago.

To this day I've vowed to never rent a property they manage or when the day comes to buy a property they have for sale.


Which just shows the actions and manner of a few really do tar a company with a brush, but I'm sure they're not all bad.

Never heard a peep from Sherry Fitzgearld letting agents, all lovely to deal with.

odds_on

Builderfromhell wrote: »

Have been looking on Daft for new house to rent.
The houses rented privately have loads of photos and written details.

The houses for rent through agents have minimum photos and sometimes none and very basic info. I always have to ring an agent for info. like; does it have storage sheds, does it have a solid fuel stove? If they answer yes I wonder why they didn't write these things down as a selling point.

They could actually save themselves a lot of time by putting as much info. on ads as possible. It would save them having to answer phone and show people the houses when they were not suitable.

I think the theory behind less info is that a potential purchaser will contact the agent.

All very well if the agent would at least answer.

Personally, I really hate adverts that don't give decent details - all the selling points plus room dimensions are very useful and again probably a selling point especially if the bedrooms are a decent size.

As regards photos, no photos of the interior indicates to me that there is a lot of work to be done or there are currently tenants in situ and the agent can't get in to take the pics.

I had a reply to a daft advert today, a house on the market since June 2008 and still the EA does not know what the BER rating is. If I was an EA I would have got the vendor to get the certification done especially as they (and the EA) can be fined up to 5 grand for not having one.

Builderfromhell

I recently asked an EA about the BER rating of a house and he told me people are struggling as it is and can't afford BER certs.
It got me thinking that there are actually very, very few BER certs listed on Daft for houses for sale or for rent.
The house I am renting now doesn't have a BER cert.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

lea26

We are rent from an agency in Tramore - stressed out by her

After 2 weeks of no oven i rang the office and was shouted at and hung up on. Followed up by an email saying 'how dare i question her integrity and we should terminate contracts'

Shower broke - ended up in another aggresive phone call to us followed by a letter demanding an aplology !!! For what ????

Then today my partner was screamed and shouted at in the bank, being threatened with solicitor and getting us out of the house!!

we've always paid our rent on time, we take good care of the house and never had any issues until oven broke ( after a year and half in the house)

Complete madness !!!!

the_syco

lea26 wrote: »

Then today my partner was screamed and shouted at in the bank, being threatened with solicitor and getting us out of the house!!

Are you on a fixed term lease, or not. Also, do any future contact by email, so that you can use it should you need to goto court over their treatment of you.

lea26

the_syco wrote: »

Are you on a fixed term lease, or not. Also, do any future contact by email, so that you can use it should you need to goto court over their treatment of you.

Part 4 i think - signed a 6 month lease when we first moved in - that was all, there nearly 2 years now!

i tried dealing with issues through email until she rang my partner shouting that i was harassing her office with emails !!! :rolleyes:

dingdong1234567

<snip> county cavan. Now there is piece of work. Under hand tactics during the selling process viewing houses that other agents have but not her. Listing houses without ber cents. When asked for them. Calls are not answered or emails returned. Has a reputation of get them in and forget about them both in terms of buyers and tenants. IAVI are no value in terms of bringing these rogue agents to book but yet complain about how pressed their members are. State regulation needs to be enforced otherwise these clowns will continue to get away with it.

odds_on

lea26 wrote: »

Part 4 i think - signed a 6 month lease when we first moved in - that was all, there nearly 2 years now!

i tried dealing with issues through email until she rang my partner shouting that i was harassing her office with emails !!! :rolleyes:

After a phone call about an issue, always follow it up with a written request for a remedy to the problem, quoting a "reasonable time" for the remedy to be completed. Usually, 14 days is reasonable. Some issues may require less time and others more time. Keep a copy of the written form.

Failure to remedy within the reasonable time could result in several actions - reporting to an appropriate authority (for example, for housing standards) as well as a claim with the PRTB for damages where the loss of a service or use of an appliance has caused financial loss, upset, distress, inconvenience etc.

lea26

odds_on wrote: »

After a phone call about an issue, always follow it up with a written request for a remedy to the problem, quoting a "reasonable time" for the remedy to be completed. Usually, 14 days is reasonable. Some issues may require less time and others more time. Keep a copy of the written form.

Thats exactly what i did the with the second issue i had (2nd issue in nearly 2 years :rolleyes:) and she went crazy saying i was harassing the office with emails..

she is nuts - i'm actually looking forward to the solicitors letter she is sending us - should be funny

fmusoc

DNG lettings Rathmines

AVOID AT ALL COSTS

I've dealt with a person of authority in this agency for two months and I can not wait to leave the property. Not because of the house or landlord but because the agency are the most unprofessional people I've ever encountered.

It takes TWO days to reply to an email.
Basic cooking, storage and heating facilities do not take priority, They can wait up to 2 months.
False promises were made on behalf of the landlord. We signed a lease and were then told the landlord did not want to do X Y Z. Doesn't matter now we are in a lease. (More fool us we signed a day before moving in and didn't see the house in its end state)

He ignores important details such as convenient times to have work done and pushes us into letting people we don't know into the house at hours that we cannot be around for to do necessary jobs.
Serious letters of complaint and letters that express disappointment are responded to with brief blunt statements.

We pay our rent on time
We take the utmost care of the property
We are patient and polite

We don't even get an apology.

I'd also like to add that if they were doing their job and relating the correct information to the landlord all this would take 2 weeks max to sort out. Instead we are sending him emails every week. The little dealings I've had with the landlord and anyone he's ever sent around have been fine so far. I feel sorry for him. He's paying and incompetent, unprofessional bully.

Take your money, property and time elsewhere.