Oliver Brocklehurst in Reading

Oliver Brocklehurst is the probably one of the worst landlords in the UK. Definitely the worst landlord I've had. To start off, he has no boundaries. The first time I met him in person he was drunk. Like I mentioned about in the condition of the property, his response to it all was appalling. Theres also the matter of him just showing up when he felt like it. Just surprise visits without informing us within 24 hours, if he ever did it was usually just the night before. Without informing a single tenant, he would do gardening (like remove the leaves in February when they hadn't finished falling and charge us £30 and hour for it), go into rooms without permission, and at one point he cleared the leaves out of my balcony without informing me. The only reason he was meant to be in my room was to check that the light switch next to the door was working, but he decided to stay in my room for an hour and violate my personal space. The audacity in unparalleled. He has violated many clauses of the contract as well as legal requirements as a landlord.

There are 2 hoovers in that house. One of which didn't have the extender attachment, but was using the other ones instead, leaving one headless. Oliver proceeded to accuse us of stealing it or losing it, and charged us for a hoover attachment that never existed, at least not in the last 10 years. Absolutely bonkers scammary from him.

He charged me £90 for painting my room, where I had chipped off a small amount of paint on one wall. Easily fixable, but he decided to paint every wall and charge me for the many many marks on them that were there long before I got there. There was smoke on the wall from where a previous tenant had burned it, and obviously he blamed me for that too :) I'm certain he had a personal vendetta against me, because I didn't entertain his creepy behaviour. He would ask incredibly invasive questions like asking about our relationship status, if we were lonely in Oxford, and tell us about his girlfriends he had back in the day. And then there was an incident where he barged into my room without knocking, twice. Right before I moved out he was doing viewings, and he had come about 1 hour earlier than he said he would and I was in the toilet, which is right next to the entry door. I was still in the bathroom trying to avoid him, when I hear footsteps. I prayed he wouldn't, but of course he did. The lock on the bathroom door was a door latch, and he pulled that door so hard it came off the latch and opened. He didn't do it on purpose, but the fact that he didn't mind that anybody could be there is mind boggling. The door was closed, locked and the fan was on. You would think he would knock? No he comes and goes as if he lives in the house anyway, so he doesn't consider the tenants existence anyway, why would he think?

Avoid Oliver and his properties if you can.

Upon leaving he tried to swindle me out of cleaning deductions from my deposit (including things like cleaning my windows FROM THE OUTSIDE) and gardening. I successfully got my full deposit back because I went to the deposit protection scheme and put a claim in. It took months to get what I rightfully deserve (no deposit deductions!) even though Oliver tried intimidating me with all the evidence he supposedly had against me etc. He didn't upload a single thing to the protection scheme.

At one point we had a builder doing some work, no problem, the thing is he arrived unannounced and was on our balcony hours before Oliver said he would arrive. Oliver let us know later that the builder had served time for murdering his late wife with an axe in public. Somehow Oliver thought it was appropriate for this man to be doing work on our house outside of specified times in a house consisting only of young women.

Oliver will come unannounced for viewings, most of the time giving less than 24hrs notice and parade people around (during covid). He will also come to just check-in and will bite your head off over issues he's had with past tenants etc. He will also take MONTHS to resolve anything, if he ever gets around to them.

The bathroom was full of mold, kitchen had a faulty hob (only 3 hob spaces for a house with 6 double bedrooms!), not enough storage space, broken sofa... you get the idea. I barely stayed to cover my 6 month tenancy but couldn't wait to get out. Don't recommend.

The landlord lied about what he would provide and falsely advertised on spare room. The landlord breaches the contract all the time. He turn up to the house without notice and just go into your room. He always refuses to give deposits back to all of his tenants. He has never given a deposit back on time. He refuses to fix things that have been broken for years. He will not reply to emails and calls. He once left the house without hot water or heating for 21 days and still has not paid back rent to those who were affected

Awful. Very slow to reply to messages. Didn't fix things when needed. Would often lie to you saying you hadn't told him about something, even if you had emailed him so had written proof. Never gave notice of visits/viewings (or if he did, it would be much less than 24 hours notice), even during lockdowns. He would just let himself in, including into bedrooms. A bit creepy. Often complained about previous tenants when you asked him to fix things, and then wouldn't fix it. Tried to take deposit deductions for a lightbulb (not even in the bedroom) and cleaning/gardening, despite me sending photos showing that it had been done.

I would give 0 if I could. After the boiler blew up before Christmas he took 5 days to respond to any of our messages. There was a gas issue and we could see he saw the messages but just didn’t reply back (thank you WhatsApp). It took a formally written email for a response, but even then he didn’t answer our concerns. It took 23 days for a new boiler to be fitted (old one was 30 years old), this is partially to do with Covid however while we got a lot of lip service, blame for lack of temporary heating was placed onto the company covering the boiler. Took 2 weeks for him to come over and get heaters out of the shed out back (which is locked) and again push the blame onto this other company. When we were finally told there was an immersion heater we quickly found out it had been broken for ages (confirmed by the engineer who came later). I then got blamed for framing photos of the heater and the tenant writing emails was accused with threatening and lying (these emails had been checked over by all tenants before being sent). I called the council seeing as when I asked the question “have you got a date booked for someone to fix the immersion heater?” He gave a 10 minute drabble about unrelated past tenants. I asked him again specifying that I wanted a yes or a no and he started to chatter again. So I called the council. Then got a call saying someone was coming over today to fix it. Also told by his FATHER that whoever called the council was going to regret it (this is the short version). On the topic of calls when we were informed of framing photos and lying/threatening, the tenant had been called and had abuse thrown at them. He also has it made up in his head that this tenant has said that the switch for the immersion heater was broken - in fact she said that it didn’t look safe as there was tape over it and the insulation around it had burst. Now all tenants who could move out have moved. My house mate had £85 deducted for blocked drains despite me putting drain cleaner down it before they left (multiple times) and I have £130 taken for “general cleaning”. He has given me a rent refund (and I am currently the only one to receive refunded rent) for the period in which the house was uninhabitable however this £130 has not been specified if it was taken from the deposit or the refunded rent. He has not even given me a breakdown of the deductions which is a legal requirement. Also said internet was included - it was in the contract, on the advert, yet we were paying another tenant for it on top of the rent. Had to fight him to sort it as everyone else was moving out/wouldn’t be there long enough to warrant taking it out under their name which shouldn’t matter because it was in the contract. In my last conversation with him he said we could go to court which I brought up the WiFi again. Apparently him saying that it was a mistake would be enough to solve this. Also wouldn’t accept the videos I had of me cleaning my room saying my room wasn’t satisfactory and the videos wouldn’t matter.
In short the contract doesn’t matter with this guy, he will push blame and responsibility onto others, and won’t listen to you unless you get an authority on your side.