Dear Mr Orzel,
Thank you very much for the feedback that you have supplied. At Jan Forster Estates, we value all feedback whether good or bad as this allows for any downfalls that may arise in our customer service levels to be address and corrected.
I have looked into the issues that you have raised and have also spoken to our third party referencing company UK Tenant Data and can see that overall there have been payments totalling £38.80. This covered the Right To Rent checks for both yourself and your partner and also a Subject Access Request to view the outcome of your referencing out of office hours. The cost of the Right To Rent checks are 12.00 + VAT per person. Every person that takes up residency in a rented property and who are over the age of eighteen needs, by law, to prove that they have the Right To Rent property. Our Low Fell branch would have informed you of these costs via the viewing leaflet that you were given where the cost is clearly stipulated and also in person when the initial conversations of renting the property took place. This payment is taken directly via UK Tenant Data and of which Jan Forster Estates has no control.
With regards to the payment of £10.00 for the Subject Access Request to view your referencing out of office hours, the administration team would have called you once the office had opened for business to inform you of the referencing outcome which would have been an alternative option and negated this cost being incurred. This was entirely optional.
At the point of applying for the property, you completed an initial UK Tenant Data form which asked for the very minimum of information. You would have been informed in branch that this is permission for Jan Forster Estates to carry out further referencing and would receive a link which would take you into the UK Tenant Data website to enable you to complete information such as previous accommodation addresses and National Insurance numbers etc.
With regards to initial tenant set up fee being expensive, whether the property is Let Only or Managed, the procedures for both services are the same regardless.
We were advised by the landlord in our initial contact that there would be 2 sets of keys available to you and apologise if this was not the case. Since receiving your feedback, we have tried to contact your landlord via e-mail and telephone to arrange for a second set of keys to be given to you. We will continue to chase this for you and Brooke will be in touch as soon as we’ve managed to make contact.
UK Tenant Data work closely with The Tenant Shop who, at the point that the referencing is completed on-line, contact applicants with a view to obtaining the best deals/rates for utilities and media packages. This information isn’t sold and is purely to help applicants achieve the best possible packages. I can also see from the system that 4 calls have been made from The Tenant Shop to yourself and apologise if you feel that this is an excessive amount. Once again, please accept our apologies that you feel that the level of service received has not been to your expectations.
I hope that this clarifies the issues that you have raised and if we can be of any further assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Kind regards
Joanne Graham
