r/Glasgow Tools

Tl;dr they are the most unprofessional letting agent I’ve ever had the misfortune to deal with and I’d highly recommend you all avoid them. Not only do they charge illegal “holding deposit” fees we have just finished renting with them and it was the most stressful renting experience of my life.

Full version for anyone who is interested / cares copied from the review I just left them on various landlord recommendation sites. Maybe I just had a poor experience but oh boy. Never again.

“We have just finished renting with DJ Alexander and cannot recommend anyone goes with them as a letting agent. They are truly the most horrible, unpleasant, and most unprofessional letting agent I have ever had to deal with.

During the process of viewing the property, alongside getting our lease signed etc. they were extremely helpful and responsive but as soon as we moved in everything changed.

We disagreed with a number of items on the inventory and noted this on our inventory before sending it off only to receive no response. We chased this up 3 times over the next 2 weeks only to eventually receive a response apologising for things being missed but telling us that because our inventory was now submitted late (it wasn't when we originally sent it off) that it was too late to add the things we disagreed on. After a bit of back and forth DJ eventually conceded to send out a contractor to repair the damage to our property (a broken door entry phone) and clean the grease clogged vents which they noted on their inventory were 'cleaned to a professional standard". To get to this stage took over 2 months.

On check-in we noted there was no Carbon Monoxide alarm in the property, a failure of the legal requirement to have one in Scotland where you have a gas central heating system. Again, this took months to resolve.

6 months in we began having issues with our 23 year old gas hobs in the kitchen. They would randomly spark, and ignite without input from ourselves which we saw as a significant gas safety issue. DJ Alexander responded with a email from the landlord stating " I won't be repairing it. If they don't like it well then they can move out!" and DJ Alexander defending this stance from the landlord. We referred this issue to the Scottish Court First Tier Tribunal service who accepted our case and months later (in February) around 5 or so days before go before the Tribunal we received a very panicked email from DJ Alexander offering to replace the hobs which we accepted and they did meaning we could cancel this referral.

After this, we got the feeling that the landlord, and DJ Alexander were not fond of us as tenants. We received notice of a rental increase soon after this and then COVID-19 hit. During this time, they attempted to send contractors to our property to conduct PAT testing despite the government advice being that only gas safety checks should be carried out. They intimidated my partner on the phone by telling her, falsely, that we legally had to grant them access and that 'the regulations say you must' and then only backed down when I asked them to provide evidence of this guidance and referred them to the Scottish Government's webpage which showed otherwise.

Almost as soon as the ban on evictions was lifted in Scotland due to coronavirus we received our notice to leave (the day after reporting that the front door lock was no longer functioning). Citing the landlord intends to sell.

We are now in dispute with them over the check out inventory where they have apologised numerous times for 'mistakes' on their part but continue to chop and change what they say we are liable for.

Throughout our tenancy they also attempted to make changes to their 'repairs process' which flew directly in contradiction to our lease and only c