Landlord Testimonial Video Jean-Marie Steeves Louise

My name is Jean-Marie Steeves Louise, that’s the full name. Currently a finance broker we deal with car leasing and direct purchases of cars. We’ve doing about three and a half, four years now.

I’m a landlord of two properties which you manage, one of them, this is located just down the road, in Hertford Road It’s a three bedroom flat, ex-council flat and you’ve been looking after it for nearly two years now, it’s coming up to its anniversary soon isn’t it? So, yeah, everything’s going fine so far, thankfully. We’re happy with the services you’re providing to us.

When you promoted your business through the BNI that we go to on a regular basis I took note of that initially and I thought, okay, I had one property then and I was in the process of buying a second property, and I thought that, let’s discuss, we had a frank discussion about my expectations and your expectations and when we went to see the property together you went through the details of what you wanted from our property and how you would rent out the property and how your business works.

My concern being a newish landlord was the risk of not having guaranteed rent, not having a tenant paying on a regular basis because if they miss a payment by a month or if they suddenly move out or they mis-plan for a long period of time, financially that’s going to have a massive impact on me and so I was, you know, I was happy with the discussions that we had and eventually agreed to take you on board, which, so far, touch wood it’s been fine.

Good question, price is important and I made you fully aware of that when we first started on initial discussions. I would say it’s just as important for me but when we discuss your expectations and the amount that you were going to be able to deliver for me and what I had in my mind, wasn’t the same as if I went private rent, but then I had to look at the figures, if I lost one month, you know, then it will be more or less the same, so yes, price is important but the delivery of the service, the guaranteed rent, I mean I don’t even have to chase you for the money, you know, every month a letter comes through the post and if I check my account it’s there on that date, not a day earlier not a day later, so it’s that peace of mind that’s extremely important as well.

Through using your service, well in the past couple of years, as I said, it’s coming up to its anniversary, I’ve visited the property twice through contact with the office, with your office, very fine, what time, what date are you looking to visit and I was there, the tenants that were in there – I don’t know who are in there right now because I’ve been for quite a while but the tenants were in there were expecting me, they were very accommodating and the property was in good condition, looked clean and so far we’ve had no issues with any, that’s a lie, we did have one issue with a blocked drain which was the remit of Enfield Council, Enfield Homes and the lady in the office just resolved it within a few days, contacted Enfield Homes got the drainage situation sorted and without any stress at all so I was happy with that.

I get reminders with regards to any certificates, like the gas certificate issue came up recently, and you know I’m given the choice whether I use someone that you use or use my own, so overall there’s been no issues.

Property you’re filming me in right now, yes, was when we went abroad in 2007, we’ve been abroad for three years and it was rented out to another company, I can’t remember the name of the company now, but I was extremely disappointed. I made you aware of that because when I got the property back the place was the right tip, there was marks on the walls, the carpets were well worn and very dirty, all the smoke alarms were just beeping and no one had changed the battery throughout the period, which tells me that no one’s actually visited that property to have a look, or to manage it in any way, so that was one of my concerns when I came to you, but fortunately that hasn’t been the case with you guys.

Peace of mind, peace of mind, that is guaranteed you know. Private rent, yes comes singing and dancing with, you know, extra money or whatever, it could be maybe an extra 100 pounds a month or an extra 50 pounds a month but, if you equate that over a period of one year and you lose your tenant for one, for when your tenant moves out, you’ve got to find another tenant, you have a void period, maybe for a period of time, if that’s more than a month, that’s a month that’s money lost, whereas guaranteed rent is guaranteed as it says on the tin.

The level of service that you give, the communication that we get from the office, the fact that I can speak to you on the phone anytime, you know, sometimes you don’t answer but you do return my call, and it’s the, I guess you go the extra mile certainly in comparison to the company that I use for this property. You go a lot further than what they did so does that make you unique from your competitors? I don’t know, I haven’t seen too many of your competitors, but for me it made a difference between a previous company that I used and yourselves.

Thankfully not, no, so I wouldn’t know. Well, personally, I haven’t, but I’ve heard stories about situations when it’s been very difficult to evict tenants and I know tenants rights are pretty high in comparison to landlords rights, but thankfully I haven’t had to go through that myself.

Just to repeat what I’ve just said earlier on, because you, you know, you’re honest, you’re upfront, you give it to me as it is, coupled with the way that your office staff are pretty much on the ball all the time, they respond to any, any request that I have on a regular basis. The way that you manage the property and just generally the overall service that’s been provided the last two years, I’ll be happy to recommend you, and I do recommend you.