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(This review relates to our experience at 53 Halliwick Rd and is NOT a reflection of the professionalism of the letting agency and its staff ).<br><br>0 stars – An extremely stressful and costly tenancy at this maisonette Halliwick Road, Muswell hill.<br><br>(This review is not about the letting agency staff. Our property manager, Gab was professional and did try to help when we repeatedly raised concerns. This review is about our experience of the property, the living arrangement, and the way serious issues were handled)<br><br>We rented a first-floor maisonette on Halliwick Road without being told before signing the tenancy that the landlady lived directly below us in the ground-floor property. We only discovered this after moving in. Had this been disclosed beforehand, we would not have rented the property.<br>The biggest problem was the constant noise coming from downstairs, which traveled very clearly into our flat due to what we experienced as poor sound insulation. The landlady’s son regularly played games late into the night, sometimes until around 3am, with loud shouting and swearing audible in our home.<br>We went downstairs on four separate occasions to politely ask for the noise to be reduced. It did not resolve the problem. When we raised it directly with the landlady, we felt completely dismissed.<br><br>However, after moving in, we met the previous tenants. They told us they had experienced the same noise problems and difficulties with the living situation. This made us feel that important information had not been shared with us before we agreed to rent the property.<br>The situation became so disruptive that we had to involve the letting agency and eventually report the noise to the council, who attended during the night. Although the noise improved after roughly seven months, the damage had already been done. We had spent most of our first year living with stress, lack of sleep, and the feeling that there was no realistic way to resolve the issue.<br><br>There were also other unacceptable problems: we had no access to the utility meters for around nine months despite the accounts being in our names, along with repeated issues with the boiler, bath taps and leaks.<br>We wanted to leave much earlier, but ending the tenancy before the first year was over would have cost us even more money, so we felt trapped. Eventually, we had no choice but to find another property. That meant paying a new deposit, overlapping rent to secure the new flat, and all the additional costs of moving again.<br><br>We had expected this to be a temporary home until we were ready to move into our own flat. Instead, because of how difficult this property and living arrangement became, we had to spend a large amount of unexpected money just to get out and find somewhere we could live peacefully.<br><br>The property has since been advertised again. In our view, prospective tenants should be clearly told that the landlord lives directly beneath the maisonette and should be encouraged to ask detailed questions about sound insulation, noise, utility-meter access, and previous tenancy issues before committing.<br><br>Had we known what we know now, we would never have rented this property.... Read more
29th Sep 2026 (16 days ago)