Tenancy review for Flat 3 67 Brunswick Street West in Brunswick And Adelaide, Hove rented from Charles Hodson rented via Brand Vaughan

Landlord rating: 1

Worst landlord you could ever have. When my boiler broke down one winter, it took him 6 weeks to fix it due to his tight-fisted-ness. He kept getting his guys out to try and repair it, but each one said it needs replacing. He would insist they try to repair and each one swapped out the circuitry, only for it to instantly fail, so he would get someone else to try. This went on for a few weeks whilst I'm shivering in a flat taking showers at a friend's place and boiling water to do my washing up. Eventually he replaced the boiler when the 3rd engineer couldn't fix it, but he ended up spending more money trying to fix it than he would have done replacing it. It took him over two years to fix the leaking roof, which made the kitchen mold even worse. He kept promising to do the kitchen up, but never did. When the cooker was on it's last legs, I complained it needed replacing and he promised to do it in November, but by the time I left the following August, it hadn't happened. Other repairs such as the noisy toilet were similary ignored - as well as the 24 hours notice for entering the property. On several occasions he would turn up insisting to inspect some repair completely unannounced. On several occasions he was rude and obnoxious to me, interrupting and talking over me when I'm trying to talk to him about the state of the flat. I found him to be an arrogant, toxic and money grabbing landlord who really didn't give a damn about his tenants.

Agency rating: 5

Mostly fair, but they were pretty difficult when it came to the end of tenancy. They wouldn't allow anytime between the end of tenancy check-out and the keys being handed back, so if there was anything wrong I had no time to fix it. Thankfully I got my full deposit back as I kept the flat in good nick. Repairs weren't done in good time, but that was mainly the owner's fault as he always tried to do it himself and never let the agency have a crack at it themselves.

Property rating: 3

Half the flat was good, but the bathroom and kitchen in particular was pretty bad. Moldy ceiling due to a leaky roof that took him over 2 years to fix, an oven that barely worked and some wooden housing around the boiler pipes that wasn't even attached - just flapping around and occasionally falling down.

The bathroom had problems where the side of the bath was always coming off and the toilet pipes were occasionally faulty so that whenever you flushed there would be a terrible din throughout the flat.

Area rating: 8

On the whole very good. Great location, mostly good locals. Fab shops and very close to the sea. Was the main reason I moved there. Can get noisy sometimes due to the close proximity of the pubs, but I knew that when I moved in and it wasn't too bad.