Your Solitaire Stories
By admin | January 27th, 2009 | Category: Past Articles | 5 commentsI’ve received a few more stories from Solitaire Property Management / Peverel Group customers who have kindly answered the questions that I raised in my recent e-mail to the people that have signed the Official Solitaire Property Management Petition.
As previously discussed I will shortly be completing the report on Solitaire Property Management and making it freely available via TheTruthAboutSolitaire.
One of the things that is evident from the stories received, is that we all share the same views, receive the same level of service and pay extortionate prices.
Mr Middleburgh will be being provided with a copy of the report for him to clearly see why so many ‘customers’ do not have any respect for Solitaire Property Management and why they express the views and opinions that they do – from his point of view – it’s not pleasant reading and clearly identifies that he has a mountain to climb if he thinks customers will become happy customers of Solitaire.
So please bear with me as the report is quite lengthy and I hope to have it available this week.
How do I send you the email that I sent teh MP?
What a relief it has been to have stumbled upon this website a few days ago.
I am one of the *very* upset ‘customers’ of Solitaire and a resident owner of a flat at Sovereign Crescent, Rotherhithe, London.
I always thought I was fighting for my rights alone, and that I have been trying for two years now to get solitaire’s ‘fabulous’ (NOT!) property managers and senior managers to deal with several issues.
I have reached a point now where I think the only way forward is local and national groups of residents who have the same or similar complaints and lack of accountability and action from Solitaire, and I am eternally thankful and grateful to the administrators of this site for taking the trouble and care to set up a forum for discussion, to collate our complaints and take some action.
After careful consideration I am also willing to do my bit more locally, and I would be more than happy to organise a meeting for all residents and leaseholders of Sovereign Crescent, SE16 with the ultimate goal to set up a residents association, or even an informal group where we can address issues more local to us.
I am sure I am not the only one who has issues and I would love to hear from others who live (either tenants or owners) at Sovereign Crescent, Rotherhithe Street, London, SE16. If not to set up a formal association, to have an informal group where we can voice our concerns and send them collectively, not just to Solitaire and Estates and Management (I am sure a number of us have done so individually), but also to MPs and watchdogs. It pains me to know that there so many people with concerns, with so many problems like myself, who are being either bullied or ignored by Solitaire and yet we pay so much money for service charges.
I would like to invite residents of Sovereign Crescent (Frederick Square, Elizabeth Square, William Square, Sophia Square etc.) to contact me via email if they want to join me in an attempt to set up a formal or informal group. I am happy to set up a website or an online group and/or a meeting somewhere locally and collect any complaints to forward them on. Anyone living or owning a flat at Sovereign Crescent, or indeed anyone who has anything to add to the debate or wants to get in touch can email me at: sovereigncrescent@yahoo.co.uk
Hopefully we can make things happen.
I am also planning to take some action to establish what exactly we pay service charges for and why. if anyone has any specific (or general) concerns about service charges, if you would email me at the same address, I promise to follow up (as long as they are reasonable and relevant). I have long been thinking about inspecting the receipts and I think it’s high time I do this, any offers to join me welcome.
I remember the days and months in 2007 where a number of us were waiting at the bus stop for hours for the 225 bus to turn up, only to be full and not stop, and the number of disappointed passengers. After a long period of individual telephone calls from some of us to London Travel and London Buses that had little effect, I decided enough is enough and one day I sat down and wrote a letter. Some of you may even remember this, if you were asked to read and sign at the bus stop. The letter was then sent to TFL, the Bus company and various passenger committees and I am confident that this has helped in some ways, as action was taken and a couple of months later the service was replaced. In my opinion the C10 service is much more reliable and frequent (at least most of the time). There are still drivers that won’t stop and they do divert the route sometimes, but at least the wait has reduced since then from hours to less than 20 minutes on most of my counts.
Back to the Solitaire issues, though.
I would like to add my own individual complaints to the long list and hopefully this will make it in time for the report being prepared by the administrator of this site. I have proof of all correspondence (going back almost 2 years) – or lack of it- from Solitaire and their abysmal customer service.
To mention a few:
- I have asked in writing on several occasions that they make available to me for inspection receipts for the service charges. I requested that they comply to the law (details of which I have included in the letters) and provide continuous access for two months as the law suggests they are obliged to do on request, and their responses (when they eventually came) were inadequate to say the least.
- Complaints about charges
- I had conversations with companies that provide maintenance to the block and their records of fees/receipts do not match up with the records I have from Solitaire.
- I have complained about their poor service and lack of responses to senior managers. Out of 5-6 complaint letters and emails I have sent 1 was addressing the issues raised.
- Rudeness and lack of basic customer service skills at all Solitaire companies, which appears to be a common complaint on this site, are issues I have experienced on a regular basis, with staff at Solitaire and its sister companies putting the phone down in the middle of a conversation, promising replies and never adhering and so on.
I am appalled and disgusted by how I have been treated and made by Solitaire staff to feel like I am a pest not worth responding to, because I have genuine complaints and voiced them.
I am appalled and disgusted by how they think they can get away with ‘bin cleaning’ and ‘bin hiring’ and all sorts of obscure and questionable charges when the council has responded to me that bins are provided free of charge (after all, we all pay a hefty Council Tax).
I am appalled and disgusted by the so called ‘Reserve Funds’ (I enjoyed reading the relevant post on this website, well said!) which are dubious, confusing and do not seem to get spent on anything other than painting the windows externally every so many years.
I am appalled and disgusted by Solitaire’s attitude of ‘we don’t give a toss’ and ‘we’ll ignore you you little pest and you’ll go away’ attitude.
Enough is enough and I hope that some action will be taken now on a national level and hopefully locally too, to address our complaints.
Anyone who wants to get in touch or if you need any evidence of any of the above please email me at:
sovereigncrescent@yahoo.co.uk
Below is a letter I have sent today on the solitaire customer servicewebsite. I await with interest to see what sort of reply I get. Thank you for setting up this website, I have been suffering for 3 years and I thought it was just me being a pain. Im in Maidstone and it is amazing how far this companies problems have travelled
Dear Mr Middleburgh
Please find below a few of the issues I am experiencing with your company at the present time, with regards to my development. I hope your new customer feedback website works better than the rest of your organisation. I have also posted a copy of the letter.
o Fencing has been broken on site since before Christmas. Apparently your company are still awaiting a quote. I can’t understand why it would take so long for someone to complete a simple job, like putting a new fencing panel in.
o I was informed last week by a letter that a water leak had occurred in the managed area that belonged to my property. For a start some of the people within your organisation had an old email address for me, so when they emailed me to tell me about the problem I did not know. Only finding out when a letter arrived. I emailed several people within your organisation last Thursday as soon as I received the letter, to find out how much the repair bill would be and what had happened. No one got back to me. So today I telephoned, eventually finding someone to speak to. I was told they had no idea if the work had been done (Despite the letter they sent saying it was urgent) and also no idea of how much it had cost. They also practically accused me of letting it happen and being in someway responsible for it and also I should be grateful for them sorting it out. I was then told I would get a call back later the same day the 23rd of February 2009. I have phoned several times this afternoon and left messages, but have got no reply and am still waiting. I am now left wondering how much the bill is going to be.
o A satellite dish has been up on one of the properties sine late 2007. Several people are aware of it within your organisation. But every time I ask I get a different story. Some say it is with your legal people and there is nothing they can do; others say they are following other courses of action. Due to the high cost of legal action. As no one can actually tell me what is happening and it is still up I can only assume nothing has been done. Despite it being in breach of the lease by not only the owners of the property but also yourselves for not managing the property in such a way as to stop it.
o No one in your company has any idea about the property, when I wanted to have SKY installed I was told we did not have the correct system installed and I would have to try and arrange for it to be installed myself. No one offered to look into it or help in any way. I though this is what a management company was supposed to do i.e. help! All I was given was a telephone number for someone who could install it for me, once I had arranged all of the work. A quick conversation with my neighbour brought to light the fact the building was fully equipped for SKY.
o Over priced insurance. For the price of the insurance we pay you could actually insure a whole street privately. How is this justified? Also no one can ever justify a cost. When I have asked for proof of costs with back up paper work their never seems to be any.
o When trying to deal with your staff you are made to feel like scum and the attitude is I should be grateful for any help your employees decided to give, despite the fact I am paying the wages. No one gets back to you (See first three points above as examples). When they finally do, you seem to get palmed off onto someone else and then have to start all over again. I seem to being dealing with three people at the moment on separate issues. I received a letter telling me that your management fee was increasing. Whilst I would be happy to pay more for a good service. No one who I have asked at your organisation can justify your current charges, let alone an increase. In fact last week I received an email, which apologised for a late response due to the fact the individual, was working on other developments and didn’t have time for our development. This comment alone seems to indicate the fees should be lowered as it admits inadequate and poor service. As you have stated in your letter to http://www.thetruthaboutsolitaire.co.uk we are in hard economic times. Yet your company seems more than happy to bump up your prices. Whilst admitting issues, with the company.
o I get charged for gardening. Yet the only thing that has ever happened, is the grass gets cut every now and then. Some of the plants and tress that were planted were dead when they were put in. You may or may not be surprised to know they are still dead.
o The internal walls were dirty. I ask for them to be cleaned. To which the response I got was, this involved a special work order and no one else had complained. I ended up painting the walls around my flat myself as they were so bad.
This is just a brief overview of the problems I have at the moment and does not reflect any old issues, which are numerous. As you are aware there is a strong campaign against your company due to what appears to be many people in the same and far worse predicament than myself. A quick Internet search brings up many interesting views from other people who have experienced the Solitaire treatment. I understand from ARMA, that complaints have to be made to the highest level possible, before complaining to them. As you are the Group Managing Director, I assume this is as high as I need to go, before redirecting my complaint to them. I look forward to a constructive response by the 27th February 2009, with positive action to resolve the above issues. If not I will be taking my complaint to ARMA, Watchdog and others. I am also looking into Right to Manage as an alterative option. It would appear that I am one of the lucky people in dealing with your company and while I appreciate new procedures are being put in place since the takeover by Peverel, I feel I cant wait any longer as I have had three years of dealing with solitaire.
We too have a problem here in East Anglia with inflated premiums for insurance cover for buildings. With a bit of homework I managed to get it reduced by half – sent the information to Solitaire but to date no response so don’t know if they took it on board or not!!!!
Hi
Is there anyone from Milton Court or Burns Ave in Chadwell Heath Romford.
The purpose built block I live in is also managed by Solitiare and I am extremely disatisfied with their service. Their are leaks and repairs that have been left undone for so long now that they are ruining the structure of the building.
I have looked into advice from the leasehold advice centre about managing your own lease, however I dont believe I know enough about property management inorder to be able to effectively do this, however if anyone else is able to I am more than willing to sign uo for this option.