Tenancy review for Tudor House Victoria Street in Ventnor East, Ventnor rented from Joyce Meakin

Landlord rating: 1

The service I received from my landlady was poor. I took the spare room of a man who was renting the property from the landlady- it was sort of like a sublet but I paid my deposit to the landlady and paid 50% of the bills and rent. The situation was strange and not explained to me well.

I was given no contract despite being lead to believe I would. Whilst staying there I rarely saw her, everything was communicated to me via the other tenant. I was evicted by text by the tenant during a national eviction ban (in Aug 2020- I chose not to contest the eviction as I was so desperate to leave by this point, for a number of reasons I won’t go in to) without being given a reason beyond the guy I was sort of subletting from needed his space. The landlady took almost two months to return my deposit and then kept over half of it. I was shocked by her keeping that much of my deposit, as I had left the property cleaned and with only minor issues I had reported prior to leaving- such as some mould on the sealant around the bottom of the shower that wouldn’t budge despite my best efforts, and the toilet seat had come off- this was wear and tear I did not break the toilet seat. When I asked her why she kept my money she made several claims she could provide no evidence for- including saying the walls needed repainting and the grout in the bathroom had gone black. I have photo evidence showing the perfectly clean walls and still-white grouting, when I sent her these and asked her for evidence of how she spent my money, she began making quite personal criticisms about me which were irrelevant to the deposit. She continued to refuse to provide evidence or return my money. I do not have the time or money to pursue this in the small claims court- so all I can do is warn others not to make my mistakes. Get a contract, don’t sort of sublet, and don’t rent from this landlady.

(The landlady told me any review I post is liable to legal action for slander- every word in this review is factual and I can provide evidence for this with emails and photographs).

Property rating: 7

The property was okay, I had no major problems except en-suite wasn’t well ventilated, and my room was right next to the road so it was very noisy. It was quite clean and things worked okay. There’s no allocated parking and finding parking was a bit of a nightmare- especially in the summer when there were tourists and all the on-road parking was 1 hour only between 8am and 6pm.

Area rating: 5

Close to the beach, bus stops and a few shops, but a nightmare to travel to or from lower ventnor, especially in winter. If you want easy access to the main towns like Newport Ventnor is not for you. The neighbours were alright, no major problems.