Arjun P.
1/5
--TLDR--
If you are looking to rent in Colchester, you can probably get at least 10-15% off of their asking rate for rent. Mainly because they are too far away from Colchester to present the property themselves half of the time. We also noticed the rent for our house was reduced while it was on the market before and after we left.
Communication is very poor, particularly from Danny claiming incorrect phone numbers for not responding to our calls/messages and especially when chasing for our deposit. We had successfully contacted him previously on these numbers and they were both advertised on his email signature and on Taylor Milburn's website
They tried to deduct 30% of our deposit - we conceded about 10% but the DPS sided with us and gave us back 20% plus interest.
--Long-read--
We wouldn't have lumped it with Taylor Milburn if we had the choice. We were renting originally with Elms Price and we had a house purchase fall through and were in a bind so stayed on with the change of property managers.
We first met Danny from Taylor Milburn prior to the switch in property management and he had gloated that he already sweet-talked the landlord into saying they could earn more by raising rent by 30% (we learnt that we were the first house of this landlord's property portfolio to be moved over and they have now moved all of the properties over since). He also let on that he was a huge fan of Only Fools and Horses starring Del Boy (look up 'foreshadowing' in a dictionary).
We weren't provided with a new tenancy agreement for the following 9 months we were there, but we did have to agree with the raise in rent of over 20%.
In comparison, it took Elms Price two working days to send someone to check and repair our dishwasher - for Taylor Milburn, the engineer arrived in one day but the advice to ultimately replace the dishwasher was ignored and no action (including repair) was made for the last six weeks of our tenancy.
Two days before we were intending to leave the property we got a call from Lee of Taylor Milburn for the following:
1) To have a gas safety test on the same day - frustrating as we were packing, but doable.
2) That someone was coming to view the house at 8am morning the following day, when we were moving out most of our belongings that day but were given the excuse that the viewer was from London so the time could not be rearranged. Also no staff member from Taylor Milburn will be at the viewing as it was the Staff Christmas party that night.
However, the engineer had left the gas off, and we were left with an error on the boiler. We had contacted Taylor Milburn when this had happened but it was the staff Christmas do. I received one question on WhatsApp about the error code, which I replied to and then radio-silence. It was below 0 in mid-December, so what was meant to be our last night in the house, we ended up staying at my partner's mother's house instead. We ended up getting back to the house at 8am the following morning to show this potential tenant the freezing house, filled with boxes.
At previous viewings (half with Lee, and half with no agent) we were asked whether the place was furnished, something which was seemingly unadvertised/ not communicated well enough by Taylor Milburn which felt like a waste of time for everyone involved. Lee would also ask questions to us about the house when showing prospective tenants around that were either irrelevant (the house's age) or information they should have known beforehand.
On leaving, Danny took over a month to confirm the deduction through the Deposit Protection Service website. This was after extensive chasing with Danny and the inventory company. One of the many times we tried to call Taylor Milburn, Lee had said that the problem with DPS in that it makes reimbursing the deposit slower. So I would say make sure they use the DPS or another TDP or they are otherwise breaking the law! We managed to get through to Danny by luck two weeks before he confirmed deductions and then proceeded to feign that he had not received our comms.
