7th Mar 2025 (14 days ago)
I had a positive experience as a tenant with Pilgrims Lettings until it came time to return my deposit. Throughout my tenancy, we maintained the property well, and Pilgrims Lettings seemed satisfied with our conduct as tenants. Comments gave on 6 monthly checks of the property were things such as, "WOW!" "This is the best kept rental house I've seen in years", "I wish all tenants were like you".
However, when it was time to return our deposit, I encountered several issues. They insisted I use their recommended cleaner at an unreasonably high cost (original cost of basic clean was over £800+), despite the property being left in a clean and respectable condition. Yes it wasn't "professionally' cleaned and we may have missed the odd cobweb above a kitchen cupboard but the level of cleaning, which included a professional oven clean, did not need to be gone over again at the cost of £500+ which we ended up having to pay to their 'recommended cleaning company'. We had the oven professionally cleaned and they insisted they came back to wipe a 'smear form the glass' as they found this to be unacceptable but instead of this we had to pay for their professional cleaner to clean the oven again! Furthermore, we repainted the entire house, even though the wear and tear was minimal and expected after a long tenancy but this wasn't good enough nor was it acknowledged that we went above and beyond to return the house in a good state. We spent approx. 15 hours cleaning the house, repainting, filling holes, gardening (despite the time of year and weather) just to make sure the house was spotless.
The check out report was not relative to the check in report and it even went into such details as rust on pipes behind radiator. The photos taken on check in were all taken far away from objects and on check out, the photos were VERY close up. When we checked in there were odd cobwebs , dust and the tile grout on the kitchen floor was crumbling away, but we just cleaned this ourselves, a lesson learnt!
The process of getting our deposit back turned into a frustrating and stressful ordeal, and it felt like they were finding ways to withhold as much of it as possible. Carla was extremely patronising and rude on the phone and in the end any correspondence was done via email. I believe this approach to deposit returns is unfair and not reflective of the general wear and tear that naturally occurs over time.
I would caution anyone considering renting with Pilgrims Lettings to be aware of their stringent and costly requirements for deposit returns. In the end we lost over £1000 of our deposit.
Overall the response to maintenance issues was ok, the only issues we really had was the oil filled heating system and whenever we had this refilled it seemed to need resetting which we couldn't do ourselves. Sometimes we went without heating for a few days but had the immersion heater for hot water and they provided some electric oil filled radiators. There was also an issue with the oil reader upon check in which took several months to rectify and alot of chasing but we got there in the end!... Read more