Last month we ran a story about the 30th birthday of Rendall and Rittner, the property management company that looks after 70,000+ units.
After publication EYE began to receive calls in which allegations were made about the way that Rendall and Rittner has interracted with some of the residents in some of the blocks under their management.
Particular reference was made to the issue of fire safety.
Now EYE has seen a copy of a letter sent to the company and entitled ‘Enough is enough’
The letter, addressed to Duncan Rendall and Matt Rittner, purports to come from ‘a collective of extremely dissatisfied residents from multiple developments under their management’.
It is apparently supported by 218 residents at Rendall and Rittner managed developments in London, 167 of whom are named in an appendix to the letter, and 51 residents who prefer to remain private.
The collective of residents come from ten London-based developments: Bridges Wharf; Chelsea Bridge Wharf; Discovery Dock East; Kidbrooke Village; Millennium Quay; New River Village; One Stratford; Royal Arsenal Riverside; Royal Artillery Quays and Vista Chelsea Bridge.
They say they have, “grave dissatisfaction with Rendall & Rittner, which is having a serious negative impact on our lives”.
They continue:
“Rendall & Rittner refer to themselves on their website as ‘the Property Management experts’ apparently delivering ‘outstanding management to our clients and lessees’, offering ‘complete transparency to leaseholders and residents over service charges, as well as value for money’ and ‘the highest standards of service’, claiming to ‘deal with any issues quickly and effectively’.
“Each of these statements could not be further from the truth in our experiences with Rendall & Rittner.”
The concerns – all of which it should be noted are as yet unproven allegations – cover: failings by the company in respect of cladding and fire safety testing and remedial works; the procedures and costs involved in dealing with cladding defects; multiple and recurring maintenance issues; unjustifiable increases in service charges; relatively high management fees; failures in accounting procedures and a lack of transparency in respect of service charges; failures in communication.
The residents claim that they are unable to sell their homes, are unable to remortgage, face financial detriment, are enduring worrying and unresolved issues while feeling “uncomfortable/unhappy” in their own homes.
They say: “We now call on Rendall & Rittner to step up and do the right and responsible thing”.
In a list of ‘immediate actions’ they call on the company to work with the freeholders “to make our developments safe and secure, and act now”, reduce service charges, and “exhibit complete transparency and clear best practice with regard to accounts and communications”.
EYE asked Rendall and Rittner for its reaction to the content of the letter and a spokesperson told us:
“We do not accept the claims made in this letter, one of the buildings mentioned is not under our management, we provide financial management services only.
“We have been working with individual clients and residents as each building is unique, some of the buildings are below 18m where they are over 18m all have been issued with or are in the process of receiving EWS1 forms.
“We have also worked with various Residents Associations at the buildings mentioned to address the difficulties that currently beset the entire sector in dealing with fire safety.
“As a business we have taken exceptional steps to call on the Government to address the cladding and numerous associated issues in favour of lessees.
“For any leaseholders who have raised concerns, we are working through their enquiries on a case by case basis.”
30th birthday for management company with 70,000 unit portfolio
Comments (6)
At risk of deliberately offending all/any national operators a la R&R, in our view Block Management only properly works (for the tenants’ benefit) where a good quality local company is doing the management. Every time, an investor asks us about the efficacy of purchasing a flat within a block, as well as taking into account the obvious, we always warn them off where an R&R is involved. Also our heart sinks any time we see a local operator losing a block to their ilk – we know our job has suddenly become so much harder.
The multi award winning ‘Rendall and Rittner ‘ ……….. who?
I posted this before on the PIE article 19th June 2020 …
Customer reviews 1 star 29% on ‘Trust Pilot’ seem to suggest when it goes pear shaped, they ignore responsibilities.
1 star 77% reviews on ‘All Agents’ go along the same lines and theme ……
The most appalling company I’ve ever encountered – avoid at all costs! Rendall & Rittner charge an extortionate management fee and to me as a resident have offered no value whatsoever. They don’t respond to phone calls or emails or make contact when they say they will and take no responsibility for seeing projects through. A have had water damage affecting my property for years with no action or resolution on their part – only corporate apathy with absolutletly no knowledge of their own projects or any semblance of professional conduct. They have wasted hours of my time and have left me feeling very frustrated and stressed that I’m not able to fix this issue despite contributing to their hefty fee.
Considering the number of awards they claim, that is a big surprise or should one be asking how many agents they competed with in those competitions and were they actually managing agent related?
Those with experience in lettings industry will soon work out how many members of staff you would need to service that large 70,000 units prortfolio and I doubt many have ever heard of them.
FirstPort are similar to Rendall & Ritter in that they spout about how many awards they have won for property management , however if you look on Trustpilot there are 1255 reviews of which 87% give them a 1* rating so their average score is 1.8 .8 and they are rated Poor. It is only fake 5* reviews from friends, employees & others that give the 1.8
An unhappy customers recent review
“I have been an unhappy stressed first port resident for 10 years, I have had the misfortune of seeing a bunch of senior managers and directors whose first priority is to be the worst company and to fleece their customers knowing that they will spend 50% of their working day The lack of leadership is very clear. they have no intention of doing business on an honest basis. it goes without saying that their methods are carried out without the worry of being brought to boot Why because they have friends in the government and they conduct business with brown envelopes. I have no wish to see anybody fail in business with the exception of FIRST PORT. YOU have been the source of some terrible stressful criminal actions to lovely senior people. May you all rot in Hell”
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All their ‘awards’ are from meaningless property industry events where residents are never consulted. The awards industry is big business. Pay a few grand and get a load of photos of you and your colleagues clutching meaningless trophies.
They do realise they can move to another agent if they’re not happy?
It is a little more complicated than that….