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“IMS? Ignorant Moneygrabbing ?”

written by MissMagic87 on 30/07/2015

Me and my partner moved into a property let by IMS in October 2011 and for the first few weeks, all was well. However, soon after this, small problems and issues with the house started to creep up. Having gained the contact number for our Landlady, who herself gave us her number on the day we moved in - we contacted her directly about these “small” issues and was pleased when she promptly sent her partner, who was a builder by trade, round to sort these out.

Shortly after these problems were sorted, we noticed that the same problems were beginning to re-occur a short time after they had supposedly been fixed. We then proceeded to contact IMS Lettings’ repair department on several occasions but each time we were told that they were unable to do anything with regards to repairing the property without the permission of the Landlady. We then sent IMS a letter outlining the issues we had with the property which included;


Living Room
•Front door - keeps dropping down, especially during hot weather, lock is stiff and at times we are unable to lock it
•Curtain rail - came down, bracket found to have been stuck in with "No More Nails" right next to wiring, very dangerous
•Top of door frame - wood coming loose

Dining Room
•Skirting board - large chunk of wood coming away from wall
•Curtain rail - came down, found to be just screwed in, looks like wall cannot support the weight of the rail

Kitchen
•Oven - the handle has come away from the door

Passage
•Back door - no lock, just using deadbolts to secure it since last year

Bathroom
•Radiator - left side is coming away from the wall
•Toilet - cannot flush toilet properly, the only way to flush it is to lift the lid of the toilet and pull the chain manually, have been doing this since last year
•Hot water tap in sink - unable to get any hot water to come out of the tap

Front Bedroom
•Window - lock is broken and the window is very difficult, and on occasion impossible to open once it has been shut. Have to go back to it later to see if it has loosened enough to be able to open it. The handle is very loose and looks as though it could easily break off

Back Bedroom
•Window - lock is jammed shut and it is impossible to open the window, been unable to open it since last year
•Boiler - kicks out gas when it first fires up to the extent that other people living in the surrounding area have noticed it. Have to regularly re-pressure the boiler as it will not work

IMS received this letter and admittedly, shortly after this the Landlady and her partner came round and again “fixed” the problems. I am almost certain that the only reason this happened was due to me writing in the letter that the window not opening, the door not opening on occasion etc. was a huge fire risk if ever there was one.

Fortunately, the issues which had been fixed seemed to be sorted once and for all, until December 2012 when the boiler began leaking water and as a consequence, ruined all of the bedding which was in there with it. To cut a long story short we were left without a boiler for almost a week when it was snowing – not fun! Again, IMS said they were unable to do anything without the Landlady’s permission (who was on holiday at the time).

We remained in the property for another year which was relatively uneventful, apart from the flush on the toilet breaking a few further times (we gave up with this in the end as it was obviously the work of a bad builder to keep breaking the way it did – although hand sanitiser was a must for us due to having to put our hands inside the cistern to manually flush it every time – embarrassing when guests were visiting!), the water that was used to run baths remained tepid at most.

In October 2013 we finally had enough when the shower broke and began leaking everywhere – but guess what? You guessed it! Nothing could be done without the Landlady’s permission! The option of a bath which was a quick paddle like when visiting Skeggy beach was an option, granted, but this quickly tested our patience.

We informed IMS that we were giving them 4 weeks notice and that we would be vacating the property by 1st December 2013 – This time there was no delay whatsoever in them replying to us – in fact, I even forgot to put a stamp on the envelope due to being in that much of a hurry to jam the damn thing in the letterbox – but they still received it and kindly informed us that unless we signed a “Leaving Early Agreement” and paid a fee to do so then we would continue to be charged rent until March 2014 as we were in a contract and this would protect the Landlady from any losses due to the property being unavailable to rent.

Obviously, at this point I cancelled my direct debit so they were unable to take anymore money from me, and we proceeded to move out of the property.

Needless to say, due to me and my partner having caused so much damage to the property and the Landlady having to pay out over £1000 in repairs to the property, not to mention that it would be a significant amount of time before the property was able to be let again – we did not see a single penny of the £860 deposit we put down prior to moving in to the property.

Just over a week later, a new tenant was living in the property.

So overall, think twice before dealing with IMS, I have spoken to people who have similar stories to this – they don’t want to know while you are bothering them with requests for repairs but tell them your moving out and they will think of every trick in the book to keep hold of your deposit!

The one thing I must say I did learn from this experience is that I am by no means a scruffy person I funded the cost of having brand new blinds put in to replace the mould coated ones which were there when we moved in, and I replaced the carpets throughout due to them not laying correctly and becoming a trip hazard – oh and I cleaned the bathroom myself upon moving into the property after seeing the hairs in the bathroom sink (what kind of hairs these were I don’ even want to think about). In essence, I would ask IMS if they have any job vacancies on their cleaning team at present, but I don’t think they would live up to my standard :)