I’d strongly recommend anyone to stay away from dealing with the owner of this cottage, namely a lady called Rebecca, who I believe owns the property.
I phoned her to make an enquire about the ‘Kingsley Lakeview’ cottage for a weekend. After initial positivity via a phonecall that the property was available, she then proceeded immediately to ask for payment details and a £500 deposit, without showing me any terms and conditions or any fixed details such as an invoice. I was quite sceptical with regard to transferring a large sum of money without any fixed details or reading any terms and conditions so asked if she wouldn’t mind emailing me something more concrete to read over. She agreed and said she’d ‘do it later’, the following day I received an email, in which Rebecca said ‘full details of our terms and conditions are attached’, and asking for the deposit, but she hadn’t attached anything, I messaged asking if it was a mistake and if I could read some terms, and was told simply ‘Hiya sorry it’s because I have a new system in place’, not actually stating if I’m supposed to be have any terms to read, so I replied asking for some terms to read before paying a deposit.
A few hours later out the blue I just get a message saying ‘Sorry unfortunately the weekend has gone though one of my agency’s were so busy’. The reason I wanted to warn people about this was the following
1) At no point was I aware the property was still on the market, the only reason I hadn’t paid the deposit was because Rebecca, despite asking on multiple occasions, failed to send any terms and conditions, which you can understand me wanting to read before paying any deposit. She even replied to a message acknowledging she hasn’t attached any terms and then proceeded again not to send then.
2) Secondly Rebecca was very unprofessional when dealing with me, firstly she didn’t even have the courtesy to phone me to explain the situation, which was essentially her fault for the delay in sending across the correct documents, simply a text saying ‘sorry’ after I had actively been asking for some official terms before paying the deposit and chasing her for this.
3) I then tried to phone Rebecca on numerous occasions to which she simply refused to answer the phone, she initially would respond to text message but not answer phonecalls which gives the impression that they were purposely ignored, seconded by the fact she made no attempt to call me back despite numerous attempted calls.
4) Then she simply stopped respond to any text message, I asked on 5 occasions where I can make an official complaint, how to leave a review and what her company was listed as under trading standards, which was simply ignored time and time again.
Therefore I wanted to warn other customers of the unacceptable professional behaviour so they don’t have the horrible time I have in dealing with someone with no decency to even answer phonecalls or acknowledge their fault or apologise for failing to send over the correct documents despite asking multiple times. Please be warned about my experience when considering renting this property in future.
