Mark Taylor And Roger Cook in Raynes Park

Sadly this review is simply a rant from a bitter tenant who was unhappy that we had to give her notice to leave our property after over three years. We have been angered by the misleading, exaggerated and frankly defamatory comments which is clearly meant to negatively affect our reputation and business. We are also outraged that a bitter and angry tenant can upload our personal details (names and address) with a totally misleading review on the web and this website allows this without any apparent evidence and reasonable checks with both parties. We have been successful and well regarded Landlords in Raynes Park for over 25 years. We have a number of HMO’s in the area and we have approximately 35 tenants at any one time and we have therefore had hundreds, likely thousands of tenants over the years. I am delighted to say, the majority of our tenants have been lovely, reasonable individuals and we have rarely parted on unpleasant terms and almost never withheld any portion of a deposit. In fact one of this tenant's housemates has just given us notice to return to Zurich after 8 years with us and she could not be more complimentary in her notice letter! You do need some background to the ex tenant that wrote this review to give you an accurate perspective. Sadly we eventually felt we had no option but to serve a section 21 notice to the tenant in question who had been with us since July 2020. This tenant had always paid her rent in a timely manner and personally we did not fall out but the situation was such that over the course of her tenancy she had made a number of tenants in this shared property so unhappy that some felt in the end they had no option but to give notice to leave. I have 4 tenants who have complained about her poor behaviour negatively affecting their time in the house and i can happily share these comments if it is required. Im sure you can appreciate that a disruptive tenant affecting others in a shared space so that they leave is really unfair on other sharers and a real problem and cost for us as Landlords. This behaviour was in addition to other instances of disruptive and aggressive behaviour. On one occasion the tenant furiously went to her neighbours one evening because she said they were being too noisy and bashed so hard on their front door she smashed the leaded window. The neighbours actually reported this to the police and only agreed not take it further as she agreed to repair the damage. On each occasion I tried to see these individual instances as a clash of personalities but eventually had to concede this tenant was always the common denominator. In the final incident she started undoing repairs and replacement work we were undertaking in the shared parts of this property and I finally felt it would be best for everyone concerned to give her notice. It is the serving of her notice that has triggered her desire to damage our reputation online. Her notice was served on 31 October 2022 requiring possession on 3 January 2023. Immediately after her legitimate 2 months notice was served she stopped paying any further rent and council tax. Despite being in breach of her tenancy agreement and despite numerous reasonable requests to pay her rent and bills, these were not forthcoming. The day after we served notice she also put a new lock on her door (another breach of her tenancy agreement). She actually threatened to call the police if we stepped foot in any part of the property and threatened to claim harassment. Clearly she had no legal right to stop us entering a shared HMO in order that we could carry out our obligations to other tenants. However, to keep the peace, we decided not to argue our right to show her designated space to potential viewers until she had left in January. Again this would be costly for us because we could not begin to search for her replacement until her departure. We understand she wasn’t happy receiving notice but she seemed to feel this was something only a tenant should be able to serve on a Landlord, despite agreeing to these terms in her contract. When I visited the property on the 3 January (the end of her notice period) she still hadn’t left (another breach of her tenancy agreement) telling us she would leave only when she had found something suitable and not before. She would flaunt the fact that the law was on the side of the tenant and not the Landlords and we would just have to wait. I was forced to go to great lengths and expense and serve her a notice of possession through Kingston County Court but thankfully she left on the 8th January before the possession order had to be enforced. Such a possession order is only granted to Landlords who have followed the necessary procedures and requirements properly, which we always do. The tenant has since agreed that she will pay me the rent she owes but only when she is able and it suits her. I have given her 2 additional months to pay the outstanding rent but to date rent and council tax is still outstanding. I will happily chat to anyone in this company to refute and supply any evidence of the various accusations this tenant has made about us. It would be incredibly strange if we were behaving as she has suggested and yet she chose to stay in our property for over three years with no complaints and is now exaggerating issues because she was served the notice to leave by us. We have also met all the required conditions to operate as a licensed HMO without any complaints over decades. Just quickly going through some of her claims: "Very Intrusive" - I can only recall entering her designated space on a handful of occasions during the 3 years plus she lived at Bushey Road and at all times at her request or agreement. When we served her notice at the end of October 2022 and she claimed harassment I pointed out that to my recollection neither Roger or I had seen her since February 2022. “Tells tenants what they can keep in their living room” - She fails to realise it is an HMO with shared use of the communal spaces like the lounge and kitchen. Tenants have their own designated space where they can store their belongings. In fact this tenant had the largest private space with her own private lounge and bathroom but still chose to store a mattress in the lounge used by the other housemates. We asked her very respectfully if she could remove a matress which had been stored for a considerable time in the lounge. Can you imaging if eveyone did as she did and used the lounge as a store room! As soon as the tenant raised the problem with her shower we attended to the issue. We gave advice and visited and thought we had solved the problem and heard no more from her, until we read these comments. The shower is correctly wired and would likely only trip if it was run continuously for an extended period. This would be a safety feature on the shower itself to prevent overheating. I have been into the property since her departure, run the shower and there is no issue. She claims that my partner yelled at her because over two days and on three occasions she had removed new lightbulbs he had fitted into shared parts of the property. I’m sure this will be another exaggeration. She is not a timid individual and is very capable of standing up for herself I have no idea about her “ complaint" with garden cuttings and she only ever used the mower once in over 3 years and it broke as she was using it. She then said she didn’t feel safe operating a mower so the fact she would now complain about not having one for a year is laughable. We actually stepped in a paid a workman to cut the grass before we replaced the mower (which remains untouched and unopened in its original box). To add insult to injury, she did not clean her designated space after over three years of use. Sadly this is just a disgruntled tenant using any means to damage our reputation.