Tenancy review for 1 Laxey Road in Horfield, Bristol rented from Claudette Woolcock
“awful, manipulative, useless”
Overall Tenancy Rating: 2
★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Moved In: 01/09/2020
Rent: £480
Date reviewed: 23 November 2021
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Landlord review for Claudette Woolcock, Bristol
Landlord rating: 1
Haha good luck.
Very pleasnt when you are thinking about moving in, will straight up lie about the property to get you to sign a tenancy. She lied about the amenities - there was no working dishwasher or tumble drier when I moved in. She also lied to one of my house mates about the number of people who would be living in the house (LL said there was 4 and there was actually 5 in the end which makes a big difference in a house with 1 shower).
When I explained I wanted to live in the house for only term time and would like a shorter contract she said I could only sign a 12 month contract but she would put out premium adverts on spareroom/facebook marketplace if I wanted to move out earlier. Fair enough I thought. However when I did want to move out she did no such thing, and seemed irritated at the audacity of me to even suggest wanting to move out early. I ended up conducting the viewings and finding prospective tenants myself, and she did her best to disuade them from living in the property, I imagine because it would be such a lot of effort for her. During this time I asked for the basic safety certificates of the property (gas, fire and that) many times over whatsapp and text so that I could show them to prospective tenants. When I got no response after about 2 weeks of polite requests I formally emailed her and I got this back: "You are becomming very heavy maintenance as a tenant. It looks as though you are trying desperately to trick me and watch me fall on my face. I am finding this very unnecessary and very unpleasant, especially in the climate we all find ourselves."
Imagine being so unbelievably defensive about a really simple 5 minute request, emailing some bloody PDFs (that by law I should have already had, by the way). So you can imagine what happens when she actually needs to more than 5 minutes work.
In terms of repairs, there are no repairs. She is INCREDIBLY hesitant to bring round handimen to do repairs. If she brings round someone it's probably her son in law, who is, to his credit, prompt, respectful and helpful, but I don't think he's an actual handiman! Claudette is so stingy, happy to let privately so that she gets 100% of the rent, but then shirks away from responsibilities of maintaining the house like she lets through an agency who would sort this sort of thing out for her. But she doesn't. She wierdly 'hides' behind this fake bureaucracy, saying 'her hands are tied' when you ask about bringing someone round to fix the ---- . Tied by who??? You are SOLELY responsible for the maintainence of this property. Expect her to ignore emails, texts and calls when you tell her something has broken. She will give strange, poor reasons for being unavailable. Once for 2 weeks she ignored my correspondence about a broken hob, saying that 'she was in France' as though the invention of WiFi has not made it's way to mainland Europe yet!! However expect that her phone is working just fine to remind you to pay your rent.
Here's a couple of anecdotes about repairs:
When I moved in the oven door was broken and exceedingly dangerous. The seal was broken and the handle was missing so all that was left was the glass panel and a bit of plastic that the handle used to be attached to. Clearly dangerous. It was one of the first things I noticed when I moved in. I promptly contacted Claudette about fixing the oven door, and she seemed more than happy to fix it. However months went by, 2 months in fact with nothing fixed. She even went as far to tell us that British Gas were coming round to fix it. She was coy about the exact date that they would come round. 2 weeks after she told us BG we're coming, I rang British gas to double check with them that they were in fact coming. They were not. No contact at all from Claudette about the dangerous oven door. Later on during the tenancy she then implied that we had broken the oven door.
The hob also broke in January. She did not fix it, claiming it was out fault and that we would have to pay to have it fixed. This itself is not 'unreasonable' as such: Landlords and tenants disagree about repairs all the time. However, what a landlord SHOULD do during a dispute is to replace the hob, and then attempt to deduct from the deposit at the end of the tenancy, not just withhold repairs. Especially given this damage was to an electric hob which runs off 240v mains electricity. She even claimed that we didn't need a hob!! That we had a microwave, kettle and oven and that's all you really need!!! I ended up out of pocket buying myself a portable camping hob just so we could cook pasta.
Claudette also loves to guilt you about many things, particularly money. However I advise her that saying 'the pandemic has been hard on us all' when you own 3 properties you rent to students and have taken NO rent cuts (In fact the rent went up by like £50 per person per room the year I moved in as I spoke to a previous tenant!!) does not make a broke student remotely emphathetic towards you.
I could go on.
The generous view of this woman is someone who is completely out of her depth and is used to the day to day issues of being a landlord being taken care of by someone else. The alternative view is an actively unpleasnt woman who leeches off and manipulates vulnerable students (especially international students for whom English is not a first language) who don't know the property market well enough to know any better. Either way, this is an indivudual who should NOT be letting multiple properties, let alone privately.
More reviews for Claudette Woolcock ⇒
Very pleasnt when you are thinking about moving in, will straight up lie about the property to get you to sign a tenancy. She lied about the amenities - there was no working dishwasher or tumble drier when I moved in. She also lied to one of my house mates about the number of people who would be living in the house (LL said there was 4 and there was actually 5 in the end which makes a big difference in a house with 1 shower).
When I explained I wanted to live in the house for only term time and would like a shorter contract she said I could only sign a 12 month contract but she would put out premium adverts on spareroom/facebook marketplace if I wanted to move out earlier. Fair enough I thought. However when I did want to move out she did no such thing, and seemed irritated at the audacity of me to even suggest wanting to move out early. I ended up conducting the viewings and finding prospective tenants myself, and she did her best to disuade them from living in the property, I imagine because it would be such a lot of effort for her. During this time I asked for the basic safety certificates of the property (gas, fire and that) many times over whatsapp and text so that I could show them to prospective tenants. When I got no response after about 2 weeks of polite requests I formally emailed her and I got this back: "You are becomming very heavy maintenance as a tenant. It looks as though you are trying desperately to trick me and watch me fall on my face. I am finding this very unnecessary and very unpleasant, especially in the climate we all find ourselves."
Imagine being so unbelievably defensive about a really simple 5 minute request, emailing some bloody PDFs (that by law I should have already had, by the way). So you can imagine what happens when she actually needs to more than 5 minutes work.
In terms of repairs, there are no repairs. She is INCREDIBLY hesitant to bring round handimen to do repairs. If she brings round someone it's probably her son in law, who is, to his credit, prompt, respectful and helpful, but I don't think he's an actual handiman! Claudette is so stingy, happy to let privately so that she gets 100% of the rent, but then shirks away from responsibilities of maintaining the house like she lets through an agency who would sort this sort of thing out for her. But she doesn't. She wierdly 'hides' behind this fake bureaucracy, saying 'her hands are tied' when you ask about bringing someone round to fix the ---- . Tied by who??? You are SOLELY responsible for the maintainence of this property. Expect her to ignore emails, texts and calls when you tell her something has broken. She will give strange, poor reasons for being unavailable. Once for 2 weeks she ignored my correspondence about a broken hob, saying that 'she was in France' as though the invention of WiFi has not made it's way to mainland Europe yet!! However expect that her phone is working just fine to remind you to pay your rent.
Here's a couple of anecdotes about repairs:
When I moved in the oven door was broken and exceedingly dangerous. The seal was broken and the handle was missing so all that was left was the glass panel and a bit of plastic that the handle used to be attached to. Clearly dangerous. It was one of the first things I noticed when I moved in. I promptly contacted Claudette about fixing the oven door, and she seemed more than happy to fix it. However months went by, 2 months in fact with nothing fixed. She even went as far to tell us that British Gas were coming round to fix it. She was coy about the exact date that they would come round. 2 weeks after she told us BG we're coming, I rang British gas to double check with them that they were in fact coming. They were not. No contact at all from Claudette about the dangerous oven door. Later on during the tenancy she then implied that we had broken the oven door.
The hob also broke in January. She did not fix it, claiming it was out fault and that we would have to pay to have it fixed. This itself is not 'unreasonable' as such: Landlords and tenants disagree about repairs all the time. However, what a landlord SHOULD do during a dispute is to replace the hob, and then attempt to deduct from the deposit at the end of the tenancy, not just withhold repairs. Especially given this damage was to an electric hob which runs off 240v mains electricity. She even claimed that we didn't need a hob!! That we had a microwave, kettle and oven and that's all you really need!!! I ended up out of pocket buying myself a portable camping hob just so we could cook pasta.
Claudette also loves to guilt you about many things, particularly money. However I advise her that saying 'the pandemic has been hard on us all' when you own 3 properties you rent to students and have taken NO rent cuts (In fact the rent went up by like £50 per person per room the year I moved in as I spoke to a previous tenant!!) does not make a broke student remotely emphathetic towards you.
I could go on.
The generous view of this woman is someone who is completely out of her depth and is used to the day to day issues of being a landlord being taken care of by someone else. The alternative view is an actively unpleasnt woman who leeches off and manipulates vulnerable students (especially international students for whom English is not a first language) who don't know the property market well enough to know any better. Either way, this is an indivudual who should NOT be letting multiple properties, let alone privately.
Property review for 1 Laxey Road, Horfield, Bristol
Property rating: 2
Property is by far the shabbiest on the street. Roof held together with plastic wrap, delapadated shed, tiles coming off the roof.
Inside the furniture is falling apart, crappy beds, non functioning drawers and garden furniture. Some mould coming through but not nearly as bad as the previous tenants' experience. Paper thins walls and amenities are not as advertised online.
The property is basically suffering from a lack of proper maintainence. With some work (and money) it could be actually lovely, but I think it has been negleted. A quick google shows that Claudette has owned the property since 2002 and probably done very little to it since then.
More reviews for 1 Laxey Road ⇒
Inside the furniture is falling apart, crappy beds, non functioning drawers and garden furniture. Some mould coming through but not nearly as bad as the previous tenants' experience. Paper thins walls and amenities are not as advertised online.
The property is basically suffering from a lack of proper maintainence. With some work (and money) it could be actually lovely, but I think it has been negleted. A quick google shows that Claudette has owned the property since 2002 and probably done very little to it since then.
Area review for Horfield, Bristol
Area rating: 5
Local area is fine if not a little far out of town. There's a coop round the corner, a couple of cafes and a big lidl and tesco within walking distance. The property is right behind a very nice (if not a little expensive) pub. Excellent bus link to city centre.
No issues with crime or noisy neighbours.
More reviews for Horfield ⇒
No issues with crime or noisy neighbours.
Other reviews in Horfield
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