Tenancy review for 85 Lowbridge Court in Speke-garston, Liverpool rented from Simon Ian Fraser

Landlord rating: 5

Direct landlord was usually pleasant to deal with but during the course of the 5 year tenancy flip-flopped between a letting agent which failed to perform repairs on any kind of acceptable timetable, to dealing directly, to going back through a letting agent. The landlord is also only a leaseholder and the freeholder is an estate management company which takes no responsibility for the safety of tenants, retains CCTV recordings for only 7 days, and is obstructive to tenants who need support, they will outright tell you that their commercial responsibility is to your landlord only.
The attitude marker for the landlord is therefore scored lowly not because of the direct landlord but because of the estate management company.

Property rating: 5

Property was a 2 bedroom apartment with bathroom and living room & attached kitchen. Property was not built to the best construction standards. Soundproofing is poor and sound carries easily between apartments. Property is also top floor and roof is constructed poorly and damp/mold marks developed on ceiling over the duration of the tenancy.

Area rating: 1

The neighbourhood is a hellhole. Do a search in the Liverpool Echo site for Lowbridge Court before you move here. Over the 5 years we've lived there there has been a £15 million drug bust down the street, a drug dealer living in the apartment opposite us on the hallway, a cannabis farm in the apartment neighbouring that one, and a drug dealing gang living in the next apartment block over which victimised us when they realised we were a same-gender couple with multiple public order offences and physical assaults all recorded with the police. The estate management company is obstructive to tenants in dealing with these matters and say they retain CCTV footage for only 7 days, don't recall footage on request of tenants (only the police, who usually take longer than a week to properly begin their investigation, they also ask the police to pay for recalling the footage). When we left this gang was openly dealing drugs out of the front gates and persistently loitering around outside their block causing anti-social behaviour issues with residents.
Additionally, despite it being against the terms of the leasehold, the apartment directly beneath is let out as an AirBnB style booking and has people coming and going causing noise at all hours of the day and having parties. Estate management has also taken no effective steps to remedy this at the time we left (Feb 2020).