Gumtree

[david427]

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to ask if anyone has dealt with these people? I just happened to click on the link to their website from loot.co.uk one day and it looked quite decent in terms of value. Most of the properties are in south east london, like deptford, surrey quays and canada waters.

Im looking to find a place as we arrive in London in about 3 weeks time. Ive heard that some rentals are quite dodgy .

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Guys

Dave

[scwatman]

hey dave

yeah i stayed in one of the houses around 1-2 years ago now when i first moved to london. i was in one of their surrey quays/ canada water places (bywater place it was i think) which was in a nice area and the house itself was really nice.

going by the ones i viewed all the properties are nice, modern and clean.
i say they are def worth checking out when you get here.

i will tell you that my stay ended badly as i my girlfriend and i where asked to move out due to changes in the law restricting the amount of people per house. (not that it was over crowded in anyway) that was not nicerooms fault tho.

1 thing i would say tho is stay away from the deptford area, not very nice. surrey quays and canada water on the other hand are great. but mainly just homes apart from a few pubs and a shopping centre (with 24hr tesco) they aint much night life.... but it does have great tube links and an all night bus service into the centre of town.

[david427]

Hey scwatman,

Thanks for that mate, i really do appreciate your help.

I heard Deptford was pretty dodgy, but i wasnt too sure. Now that someone has confirmed it for me i guess i will not go there.

I hear that they only have a couple per house restriction or something like that, sorry to hear that it ended badly for you.

The places do seem quite nice, i just wasnt sure if i should go with these guys or accomodationlondon.

Has anyone else tried with niceroom.co.uk?

Thanks Guys

Dave

[dani_bernie]

Can niceroom enforce how many people are in a house? Is it likely that you sign up with them and you then discover that there are a heap of people living there that aren't supposed to be?

I'm also interested in the answer to Dave's question about other people who have also tried niceroom.

Cheers.

[jeremy_scott]

Hey david,

I'm staying in a niceroom at the moment in straford. I had heard bad stuff about the area, but its actually pretty good, I would definately reccomend it, becasue I work in the city.

I've had a really good expereince with niceroom.uk so far. When I moved in the boiler broke straigt away, but they fixed it within 2 days.. so they were really good about that.

[montyzuma]

theres flatmateclick spareroom.co.uk and a load of others but they are simply advertising places they do no checks on the premises, you would need a letting agent for that.

[Prissy]

Yeah, renting in london can suck.
I get rather paranoid about ads which are too good to be true.. like 2 bed flats for 100 a week.. is it for real???
i wish we could all just live in a really big big mansion for free?
Or maybe we should all rent one together..
we'd have space, luxury and even companions

xx

[montyzuma]

while you are wishing add-in cute cute bunny-wunnies to do the washing up and some squirrels could dry it, and ooh ooh a money tree in the garden.

[Prissy]

Cant a girl wish?

[John_7719]

Hi I have personally had very bad experiences with niceroom. The product can be good, at least initially, but the service is very very poor. Be careful with what you are told and what is actually delivered. DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THEIR NICE PICTURES. ITS JUST A SHAM! Maintenance calls are not attended to unless u hunt them down. Houses are left in a despicable state. Communal areas are in a mess. Yes it is true that tenants are supposed to clean, but when they dont niceroom does not do anything about it. They claim cleaners come around once a month...i stayed with them for 2 yrs n never saw any cleaner! People smoke in the house. U complain about it, you fall on a deaf ear or are asked to deal with it yourself at best!!! They have virtual landlords who are supposed to take care of the house but that does not happen. If you contact them for something it's as if you are asking them to move a mountain. Houses are meant to be for young professionals, you move in n u end up with a bunch of students. Do not forget that the lettings agents would tell you what you want to hear since they work on commissions. They dont care whether your needs are met. Their only concern is to lock you in a contract.... A whole load of promises and lies I would say!

[peterzumthor]

John.. if you've had such bad experiences why did you stay a tennant for two years?

The leases are available in 3month or 6month stints, so you obviously thought.. hey this is so bad i will renew my lease... 3 times further!!

You can't exactly blame spare room for messy tennants - I believe that you can specify none-smokers, but comeone get a grip.. the company specialises in 'graduate and young prof' which means they are going to occasionally have the odd fag pissed u p.


The same is true to every agency/landlord they want to make a sale so they will exagurate the truth.. such is the art of selling.


I've not lived there myself yet, so I can't say it just seems you post seems uttery floored, that combined with that fact that you can't even use proper english makes the whole thing appear a little childish and flippant.

[John_7719]

Peterzumthor, I think if someone has a problem with his English, it is you. What is wrong, my English is too 'up to the standard' for you to understand? At least I do not spell 'tenant' with double 'n'. And its 'non-smokers', not 'none-smokers'. 'exagurate', where does this come from? It's exaggerate!! I did not want to get personal. You started. You sound like one of their employees by the way. You getting personal also shows that you do not intend to defend the company, but make me look bad.

You pretend to know so much about the leases when you know nothing at all. It is an on-going contract which means whether you sign up for 3 or 6 months, it does not make a difference if you keep staying there, i.e, you do not have to renew your contarct every 3 / 6 months. And yes, if you have not lived there yourself, maybe your best bet is to refrain from commenting on that particular issue...

[peterzumthor]

I'm not the one making sweeping generalisations. You've still not answered the question...

I don't work for the company but I think if your going to display a complaint about the company you may aswell back it up with FACT and evidence.. rather than you're twisted and monochromatic view of the world.

[studc]

Nice room are RUBBISH! They never fix anything, their maintenance team is poor, they take months to fix anything, respond to emails, log faults, its been a few months now and they are only just starting to sort things out!!!

I strongly advise against them. I will never rent a room from them again. A quick google search will also tell you exactly the same. I should of listened to them. I took a chance and regret it.

Oh their "contract" also states that if Niceroom ever take you to court you have to pay fees and costs, read the fine print!

They are a JOKE!

[Kartin0704]

I have been living with nice room a year now, and I am really getting fed up with it.
The biggest problem of this company are the people running it. They are so unprofessional and just simply can’t do their job. The only thing they are good at is marketing and making you take the room. Once you lice there the service is pretty much non excitant, then you call them they will be rude and impolite. Most of house are overfilled, and have small living rooms with tiny kitchens.
I live with other people and there is no space for us all in the living room, no space where to store food in the kitchen for five people.
If there is an empty room in your house they will never bother to notify you about viewings. You get out of you room on Sunday morning in your pyjamas- and you see strangers in a house. On the top of that you will never be given a notice, that somebody moves in. Which makes it more difficult for new tenants to get on with old ones.
If you need a nice place which you can consider your home avoid Niceroom.

[studc]

I agree, niceroom are awful! Once you have paid them money their customer service is appalling, You spend half your life complaining that things aren’t being fixed, then they blame you for stuff which was damaged by them or a previous tenant, they miss sell you things like a cleaner when after you moved in there isn’t one and they are not prepared to sort that out. Thing never get fixed!!!!

It took them 4 months to sort out the TV Aerials for the bedrooms and to fix the water supply!

My advice is avoid them unless you don’t mind putting up with sh*t service!

Enjoy!

[Kartin0704]

It took the 6 months to fix, areal. When I callded, they said it's not urgent. When boiler was broken, we lived 2 weeks without warm water. Luckily it was Summer.

[no_one_only]

I have been living with "Niceroom" for a while now. All the posters here are correct, they make no attempt to fix any of the problems you mention.

Some of the problems in our house are extremly dangerous such as plug sockets hanging of the wall and broken pieces of wood on the stair case. Each of which took over a year to fix. The stairs were actually repaired using the same broken pieces of wood and have subsequently broken again within the same week.

Has anyone living there had any random charges thrown at them over the past few months? In November they attempted to charge the tenants £400 to replace a white carpet that had been used for over 2 years. The reason was because of a small stain on the carpet that we cleaned off easily in about 5 minutes. We subsequently sent nasty emails and refused to pay this. We heard nothing further from "nice".

What are your opinions on the new mandatory direct debit scheme. It seems they are putting in a way to randomly charge you for anything they seem fit.

For people looking at this firm about to move into London, look at other alternatives first and use this as a last minute option and only attempt to stay here short term. MAKE SURE you look at the property and not go off the photos as they are misleading. If you move into a house that has been lived in for a while there will be many things wrong with the house and you run the risk of being charged to repair/replace.

[redfraggle]

Hi. I noticed that the last date for this posting is Dec 08. Let me update you with my niceroom experience.

Moved in Nov 08. Although following their instructions to a t, they tried to cancel my move in date ON THE DAY!! Said I hadn’t paid my deposit and rent to them. Actually I had paid it 3 weeks prior using the account & ref they gave me. Turns out, they forgot to check this account. They do this a lot.

Maintenance – the shower screen on my ensuite was hanging by one hinge only so every shower I had to hold the glass screen up to stop it falling on my. It took them over a week to fix it for a variety of reasons ranging from not giving the maintenance guy the code to the front gate, to not giving him the room number to my personal favourite – getting to the room and not seeing any problems.

Just prior to leaving I saw that they have also changed their maintenance and you have to be present for the work to be done. Of course, they can’t tell you when the maintenance guy will be there so you lose a whole day’s work. They want professionals in to pay their exorbitant prices, but refuse to do anything at a time that a “professional” could make. It’s all a scam to make you pay more for “out of hours” work.

Rent – even though I used the account details that I was given by the accounts people at niceroom and I paid my rent every month (a few days early even!) I still got threatening calls for each of the 3 months I was there. On my last month I was threatened with legal action for supposedly not paying my rent, even though the rent had been paid and had cleared their account (I checked this with my bank). They used their favourite excuse when I made them go and check – “Oh, we didn’t check that account”. Geeze, if it’s not the right account then give people another account number! It’s not rocket science!!!!

The house – was lovely, but the guys at niceroom have no idea who is in the rooms at any point in time. For example: I couldn’t move on the date I wanted to as the room wasn’t ready. So I asked if there was another room in the house I could move into and pay rent on for the week I needed until my room was ready. I was told that all the rooms were taken. It was a 6 bed house and for two-thirds of the time I was there only 4 rooms were occupied. So they either lied, or they have no idea. Personally, I just think they’re clueless.

And they also enter your room without informing you. They did this constantly when I gave my notice, often not even bothering to lock the door behind them. Once more, niceroom breaks the law.

Deposit/bond – be VERY careful with this. On their website and when speaking to a salesperson they will tell you that your deposit is placed with an independent 3rd party as a form of security and to meet industry standards etc. It’s even in the contract you sign. They don’t do this. There were 4 people in my house and all of us realised that our deposits weren’t placed with this 3rd party but we only found out WHEN IT WAS TIME TO MOVE OUT!!! This is completely against the law and even breaks the contract that you sign. But when I pointed this out to them they didn’t care. Their excuse….”Oh it went into an account we don’t use – we wondered what that money was”. It’s been 3 weeks since I moved out and I am still fighting them for the return of my deposit/bond. I think the only way I will see this money is to take legal action.

I’ve been living in London for 10 years on and off and needed a stop-gap place to stay between flats. All I can say is thank god I only had a 3 month contract! I would not be at all surprised if this company goes bust and takes all the current renters money with them. All in all, the organisation is completely dodgy. For your own sake DON’T USE THEM!!!

[steoc4]

Well it seems the predictions here were right and niceroom have gone into administration...

Which is a pretty major problem for me, I placed a deposit on a room with them last month and I was supposed to be moving in today - they have about £1200 of my cash right now.

I only found out about the situation today (I was already in Gatwick airport having just arrived in London to move in), when I got a call from another agent, Clubeasy, who say they are taking over the property and they hope to have the keys soon.

I have no idea where I stand right now, the woman on the phone said everything will be taken care of and my contract will be exactly the same, but all I have are promises from a company I didn't know existed until they called me... All I can do now is wait and hope, I'm sleeping in a friend's in the meantime.

[thomashardy]

does any one know the trading company's name of niceroom.co.uk, I am desperately trying to get my deposit back and wonder if anyone knows the administrating company name and contact details.....?

Thanks.

[aptns]

They've gone bust.

[Bluey]

does any one know the trading company's name of niceroom.co.uk, I am desperately trying to get my deposit back and wonder if anyone knows the administrating company name and contact details.....?

Thanks.

If you've been invoiced by them, and if it's a limited company, then you should be able to identify their name from any billing information and then look them up on the Web check service of the companies house website.

In the event that the company is in administration (rather than the company dissolving themselves), then the administrators contact details will be given there.

[Bluey]

I looked up the Whois record to get the contact information from the domain name, then googled the name given plus 'Nice room' as a key word. This led to numerous articles that indicated it may come under the following company 'Nice Group Limited' which is now insolvent.

As per my previous advice, the following contact information for the administrators is freely available on the companies house website via the webcheck service.

Practitioner name: PARKER, STEVEN JOHN
Practitioner address: TENON RECOVERY
SHERLOCK HOUSE
73 BAKER STREET
LONDON
W1U 6RD

Practitioner name: BINYON, TREVOR JOHN
Practitioner address: TENON RECOVERY
SHERLOCK HOUSE
73 BAKER STREET
LONDON
W1U 6RD

Have a look at the reports you can download as when the administrators finish their review, they will publish a report to advise of their findings, plus meetings of any creditors.

[suky]

HI!
Could someone help me please......!
I about to move out end of this month from a nice room flat.
I realised like 2 /3 weeks ago (because my monthly rent wasnt taken off this month) that nice room are not running it anymore and now is some company called club easy which i spoke on the phone with today.
And they told me they should had have 2,3 letters on the post explaining everything is going on, whitch i didnt.
As im suppose to move out anyway i thought there is no way they will give me my deposit, so i dont know if i should pay April month to them...?
Cause i probably lost the deposit already......
And, club easy also dont have anyones contract, and they also say the same story about the deposit, they actually say dont have an answer when i ask to who shoul i turn to for my deposit....?
the only thing they tell me is you have to pay this month and i cant move out because they dont know anything about it.....
What should i do....?

[suky]

hi there!
Have you receive your deposit yet........?
Cause i dont know if should pay the last month im in the flat then....!
im worried
thanks

[Bluey]

Suky,

Contact Shelter for free expert advice about your situation. Don't be bullied into staying longer than you intend nor risk never being able to get your deposit back until you've sought proper advice.

Shelter should be able to advise you where you stand when a new landlord takes over an existing contract and the likelihood of ever seeing your deposit again in this situation.

As far as I am aware, there is a formal procedure when a new landlord takes over from a previous one and Shelter will be able to let you know about the legality of it.

Come back to the forum and advise what you've been informed as your housing rights so others in your situation also know what to do.

[suky]

Hi there
im also having problems with the deposit, have you had yourts already....?
cheers

[limey729]

Hi. I noticed that the last date for this posting is Dec 08. Let me update you with my niceroom experience.

Moved in Nov 08. Although following their instructions to a t, they tried to cancel my move in date ON THE DAY!! Said I hadn’t paid my deposit and rent to them. Actually I had paid it 3 weeks prior using the account & ref they gave me. Turns out, they forgot to check this account. They do this a lot.

Maintenance – the shower screen on my ensuite was hanging by one hinge only so every shower I had to hold the glass screen up to stop it falling on my. It took them over a week to fix it for a variety of reasons ranging from not giving the maintenance guy the code to the front gate, to not giving him the room number to my personal favourite – getting to the room and not seeing any problems.

Just prior to leaving I saw that they have also changed their maintenance and you have to be present for the work to be done. Of course, they can’t tell you when the maintenance guy will be there so you lose a whole day’s work. They want professionals in to pay their exorbitant prices, but refuse to do anything at a time that a “professional” could make. It’s all a scam to make you pay more for “out of hours” work.

Rent – even though I used the account details that I was given by the accounts people at niceroom and I paid my rent every month (a few days early even!) I still got threatening calls for each of the 3 months I was there. On my last month I was threatened with legal action for supposedly not paying my rent, even though the rent had been paid and had cleared their account (I checked this with my bank). They used their favourite excuse when I made them go and check – “Oh, we didn’t check that account”. Geeze, if it’s not the right account then give people another account number! It’s not rocket science!!!!

The house – was lovely, but the guys at niceroom have no idea who is in the rooms at any point in time. For example: I couldn’t move on the date I wanted to as the room wasn’t ready. So I asked if there was another room in the house I could move into and pay rent on for the week I needed until my room was ready. I was told that all the rooms were taken. It was a 6 bed house and for two-thirds of the time I was there only 4 rooms were occupied. So they either lied, or they have no idea. Personally, I just think they’re clueless.

And they also enter your room without informing you. They did this constantly when I gave my notice, often not even bothering to lock the door behind them. Once more, niceroom breaks the law.

Deposit/bond – be VERY careful with this. On their website and when speaking to a salesperson they will tell you that your deposit is placed with an independent 3rd party as a form of security and to meet industry standards etc. It’s even in the contract you sign. They don’t do this. There were 4 people in my house and all of us realised that our deposits weren’t placed with this 3rd party but we only found out WHEN IT WAS TIME TO MOVE OUT!!! This is completely against the law and even breaks the contract that you sign. But when I pointed this out to them they didn’t care. Their excuse….”Oh it went into an account we don’t use – we wondered what that money was”. It’s been 3 weeks since I moved out and I am still fighting them for the return of my deposit/bond. I think the only way I will see this money is to take legal action.

I’ve been living in London for 10 years on and off and needed a stop-gap place to stay between flats. All I can say is thank god I only had a 3 month contract! I would not be at all surprised if this company goes bust and takes all the current renters money with them. All in all, the organisation is completely dodgy. For your own sake DON’T USE THEM!!!

- I had the same problem with the deposit! They owed me all my deposit and referred me to this '3rd party' company. They had never had a clue... I want to fight them too!

[ronfrewman]

- I had the same problem with the deposit! They owed me all my deposit and referred me to this '3rd party' company. They had never had a clue... I want to fight them too![/quote]

I find myself in the same position regarding my £900 deposit, I have been in contact with the tenant deposit scheme which was protecting the deposit (according to nicerooms) but they replied to say that they have no arrangement whatsoever with nicerooms and even suggested I should take legal advice. If anyone has information that would help me raise court action against them, would be glad to hear from you.

[newlondon]

Hi everybody,

Does anybody have an update ad to how this company is performing now it is in the hands of club easy? Have the complaints outlined above been rectified?

Thanks in advance.

[tarundhillon]

I also just found out from clubeasy that my deposit is not covered under the DPS scheme and they have told me that they are trying to process it. Reading from the threads over here the picture looks very gloomy has anyone got their deposits back from clubeasy ??

[jasition]

Hi everyone,

Let me share my experience with niceroom. The viewing and paying part were really efficient. The maintenance literally did not exist except some prank hotline operations - It was a waste of time calling them. You waited a long time but they never replied.

Problems in house
1. Cracks on wall and ceiling, leaking fridge, wall without sound isolation - never fixed

2. Blocked drains in washing machines and sinks - fixed after 4 weeks with totally 2x complaints calls from all tenants

3. Water, electricity, council tax, property management, TV licensing bills - never paid until the house was taken over by another property agent

4. No ex-housemate had a chance to get back deposit, except one - who found that his deposit was not registered and threatened to inform DPS to get a 3-month rent compensation

5. Nasty housemates - they never cared

6. New housemates - they never notified us

Tips
1. Although niceroom has gone into administration, the 3 bosses are still renting their private properties. Make sure you can avoid from them. Some even have opened a new property agent company!

2. If your deposit is not registered in DPS, you can ask for 3-month compensation and leave the house. This is written in regulation.

3. You can try to submit a statutory declaration to get deposit back. It costs you five pounds to do the oath in front of a solicitor. However, they really responded rapidly on this - immediately after they knew it.

4. If you went into the fight with deposit, they may compromise if they have not registered your deposit in DPS, or the house should have HMO licenced but they did not do it.
(http://www.communities.gov.uk/housing/rentingandletting/privaterenting/housesmultiple/)

5. Leaving the last month's rent unpaid may save you some hassle. It is a rather risky approach as they may break in at any time. Make sure you do not leave any address or contact to be traced.[/u]

[ladyeden]

Clubeasy have pretty much the same staff as niceroom and they are an absolute nightmare! I'm now having to take them to court to get my deposit back after having a pretty similar experience to most of those on this thread. Has anyone else had problems with clubeasy? The testimonies could really help!

Thanks T