Lambton Property Management / Property Consultants

To start, when we moved in the house was unclean, we had no power for at least 12 hours as a pole fuse was blown, no hot water in the bathroom for a week as the element had broken, & no internet as painters… had cut the fibre wires. We were not offered to do a walk-through/inspection of the house prior to moving in. These are only the larger issues, there were many smaller things that contributed to making moving in difficult & the home almost unlivable for a good while.

We then had issues with the condition of the driveway, & after multiple attempts to get LPM to fix this (given the drive became un-usable & we had to park our 2 cars on the road as opposed to in the garage, despite still paying full rent) it took months for them to send someone out & get it fixed.

At the initial viewing, we were told a heat pump would be installed “soon”. This was important to us as our previous flat had been cold & damp, so we wanted somewhere with heating. Evidently, LPM’s definition of “soon” is over a year - we were not provided with any source of heating in the meantime, which is ILLEGAL under the Housing Improvement Regulations 1947. When contacted about providing a source of heating until we could get a heat pump installed, LPM flat out REFUSED.

They also attempted to lie to us about other Healthy Homes standards, as the rude property inspector stated the home was exempt due to age. When checking this with Tenancy Services they confirmed this was not true, & were quite shocked that a well-known management company would be so misinformed.

The final straw was a leak in the bedroom window, which took LPM a full month to get fixed - meanwhile we slept in the lounge due to the incessant dripping, & furniture in the room began to grow mould due to the dampness. All while paying full rent.

On multiple occasions, things got so bad I almost contacted the home owner to inform them of the state of the home & conditions we were forced to live in, in the hopes they’d have more sympathy than LPM do.

When time came to give notice that we were ending the tenancy, I asked for a rent summary. I was provided a document that was incorrect (stated we paid more than we actually had), despite being assured that it was accurate. It wasn’t until I sent through supporting emails that they amended their mistakes & sent through a correct summary.

I asked LPM when we could expect the final inspection as I was planning on attending, I was told the date but no specific time - just that it would be “in the morning”, but that it still might change. I reiterated to LPM that I work full time so require a specific time as I am unable to hang around the house all day, to which I was told again that there is no specified time - this clearly indicated to me that LPM did not want me to attend the final inspection, which seemed extremely strange as this is common practice.

3 weeks after we moved out, they decided there were some missing keys. We returned all keys days after our tenancy ended, so it seemed extremely out of the blue that there would suddenly be an issue here. After another 2 weeks of struggling to get a reply out of the staff at LPM, we ended up giving them the money to get new keys cut as we were so tired of dealing with such unreasonable people & simply wanted our bond back.

I understand the rental market is hard, but do yourself a favor & don’t rent through LPM - they will make your life miserable."

The rent was collected and paid to me and the maintenance taken care of.

The people who stood out to me were Pamela, Michaela and Shane. All three went out of their way to handle any queries I had and just made and my property feel special.

We sold the property last month and are now looking for a new… one and we will be using them to manage it."

One example was the house alarm which went faulty and was on continuously at 2am in the morning, sparky was at the premise in 30 minutes to disconnect it. Alarm was repaired and fixed the next day, and we were kept informed all the… way through of when progress would happen.

All dealings with LPM have been professional, their staff give great customer service. and they understand their business particularly in relation to the current economic realities."

The most unprofessional service i have ever had to deal with."

Everything that could be wrong they screwed up. They sent us a letter asking us to renew our tenancy for the following year, we immediately sent letter back renewing it and a week later our property was being advertised on trademe without our knowledge. We went into the office to renew the tenancy and complain, I left my dog… outside and they started accusing us of living with pets at the property without their knowledge. We has a tenancy agreement where both the cat and dog were listed but they had lost it so we had to bring our copy in.

There was black mould, a leaky roof, a mice infestation and a kitchen sink that was rotting so badly that the tap almost fell out. Despite all proper channels being used they never did anything about these things. The property was 27 St Michaels Crescent, Kelburn just in case the landlord of this property ever happens to come across this.

They repeatedly claimed that they had lodged our bond when they hadn\'t and repeatedly lost forms or claimed never to have received them when they were brought in or e-mailed.

They repeatedly refused to reply to e-mails, ignored changes of tenant and then months later claimed that tenants hadn\'t notified them they were moving out.

I WILL NEVER EVER RENT ANYTHING FROM THESE PEOPLE EVER AGAIN NO MATTER HOW DESPERATE I AM FOR A PROPERTY....LANDLORDS DO NOT LIST YOUR HOME WITH THEM....they also operated under the name Property Man and are still using the alias HomeAds, please for your sake and that of future tenants, use another company these people are complete scubmags.

If we had taken them to tenancy tribunal we could have won thousands, $1500 alone for not lodging the bond. The only reason I didn\'t is that my flatmates were still living there and didn\'t want the conflict and the risk of not having somewhere cheap to live the following year."

Our first issue was the condition of the property when we moved it Thick grime coated the window sills, the bathrooms all needed cleaning, including the soiled toilets. LPM had made muck ups with. the timeframes meaning we had to move in as soon as we were able n… not able to bring the condition to their immediate attention. However we did take photos which we sent to LPM and were never acknowledged.

Shortly after we moved in, we discovered the property was on the market. We found out when a real estate agent contacted us for viewings. LPM did not communicate this to us at any stage prior to or after having signed the tenancy, but they passed our contact details onto a real estate agent.

Then, despite being promised the key to the only internal storage facility on the property and having made countless number of phone calls to the office, they told us this storage was excluded from the tenancy, despite there being no mention of this in the contract. Resolution if this matter was only made after we threatened to sit in their office all day demanding that they solve the issue and pay compensation. This was not paid until 7 months later.

At the end of the tenancy we cleaned the property to a higher standard than what we moved into. We were told on the final day of inspection that we would hear from them I regards to the bond. After various attempts to contact them with no luck (I was constantly being told that someone would call me back and my emails were not replied to), I sent a bond refund form directly to the Dept of Building and Housing. Within a week I received an email from LPM detailing. the damage they claimed we had made. Unwilling to deal with LPM directly, I applied to the Tenancy Tribunal for my bond and compensation owed to us that they had committed to in writing. Two days before the Tenancy Tribunal hearing was scheduled for, we received an email with a completed scanned copy of the full bond refunded and the compensation paid into our account. The email even went so far as to say that it was our lack of communication that caused the delay.

During the entire ordeal, communication with LPM was painful inactivate and definitely not trustworthy, they tried on multiple occasions to bully us in regards to things we had a right to request and I would strongly recommend against anyone dealing with them or renting from them. It is so disappointing that NZ has no property management regulatory system to which to hold cowboys and bullies like LPM accountable."