Oakleys

Jan 7th, 2020

My flatmate and I went to view a property managed by Oakleys. It was on Zoopla for 1560 per month which for Central London was great value for money. We decided to go ahead and was in the process of sorting out the details. The whole place needed properly cleaning and a lick of paint since it was looking a bit worn down. The agent, Sharon Gerber, initially seemed very keen to get things moving and agreed with everything so far, move in date, cleaning etc. We were told that it was likely that we could have everything sorted by the end of the week. We were very excited at the prospect of moving in and it seemed that all was well so cancelled other viewing appointments and turned down other perfectly good flats. And then nothing. No updates, follow-ups, absolutely nothing. We called towards the end of the week and left a message and also an email so we could find out what was happening. We noticed Sharon had called but only long enough for the phone to ring once (I suspect she did not mean to call us). At this point I had a feeling that something funny was going on and so I went back onto Zoopla to have a look for some other flats to at least view just in case. I then spot the exact flat we had viewed with Oakleys re-listed for 1733. I wasn't annoyed that the price had changed. I completely understand that people change their minds, perhaps the landlord decided it was too much of a bargain. I am annoyed at the fact that Oakleys ignored any contact from us and couldn't be bothered to tell us that the situation had changed. Was it really that hard to send an email to let us know the price has increased? In such case, we would have politely bowed out. Moving house is stressful enough, especially where it is time-pressured and we wasted an entire week on this and turned down other great flats. I got the sense they were trying to get higher offers, while not declining ours just in case, but I really did not appreciate being messed around in this manner. It's not hard to be transparent. To make things worse, Sharon calls out of the blue a week later and says she did not reply to our messages as they had received a higher offer. I explained I was confused by the whole thing and asked why they had decided not to tell us the flat had now been listed at a considerably more expensive price until now. She said that this did not happen. I said it did, and that I could pull up the listing on Zoopla to show her the listing history. She told me to "stop whining at her". I wasn't rude. I wasn't aggressive. I just wanted an explanation as to why she felt she could waste our time and mess us around like this. We knew beforehand that the people who had previously rented with them were students (we are not - graduates of 2 years with good jobs) and it is extremely disappointing when agents think younger people can be taken for a ride. We would have been paying them the same money as someone older, and I somehow doubt Sharon would have been so patronising had we been middle aged men. She still had the cheek at the end of the call to ask if we were going to put in a higher offer. I think not, Sharon.
Oct 25th, 2021