I was a tenant for three years until the end of June 2022.

This only applies to Flat 3, Sun House, 6 Chelsea Embankment, London SW3 4LF, the first floor flat: all other flats in the same building are owned and/or managed by other people, and these comments most certainly do not apply to those other properties.

The property itself, on the first floor of a enjoys a beautiful and truly enviable view of the Thames looking over towards Battersea Park directly towards the Peace Pagoda, although perhaps sadly, a tree obstructs visibility to the Pagoda itself particularly during the summer.

During my tenancy, a number of defects occurred including leaks and worst of all a ceiling collapse that rendered the main bedroom too dangerous to use and out of action for over six months, although, of course, I was still paying full rent. I had to initiate the legal process to engage any practical action, and it was 4.5 months before any work was started, and it took two further months to complete.

The shower tray in the main bathroom was out of action for nearly 2.5 years of the three year tenancy: half a dozen quotes were taken during this time, but no practical action was ever taken to resolve. This had also leaked into the flat below.

A leak in the study area took three or four days to locate, not only ruining the decor and carpet in my flat, but also leaving substantial damage to the flat below. When attempting to locate the leak, the landlord’s contractors removed the bath side panel (the room above) but it was never properly put back and decorated. Because of previous delays in responding to other dilapidations, and as I was only using the area as a study, I chose to avoid further future disruption and just live with the extensive cosmetic damages.

The above were just a selection of the defects during my tenancy.

A couple of days after moving in, when most of the boxes were yet to be emptied, there was leak from the flat above.

There was a mouse infestation that I paid to have dealt with professionally.

Ceiling damage from the landlord’s electrical contractors when refitting downlighters.

Ceiling cracks in and the second bedroom, the latter of which looks ripe for another ceiling collapse at any time.

There’s also substantial water damage from the boiler evident on the walls of the second bedroom.

The handles on the external doors were extremely weak, and with the metal ironmongery being soft, I had to replace a number of them.

I also rectified a number of defects evident in the property immediately upon moving in, including a damaged electrical outlet and unhung pictures with broken hanging wire.

I should’ve smelt a rat early on: communication is difficult because technically the flat is owned by an offshore company, Ivory International Properties Limited, based in Guernsey, although the landlord is based in India. So the chain of command if I needed to get anything done (including getting the original tenancy signed!) was arduous: Me, the letting/managing agent, the offshore company and the landlord.

Towards the end of the tenancy, there was a further finger in the pie as the letting agent was no longer also the managing agent: a fifth party had been introduced to “manage” the property, although I never once spoke to them, and they never introduced themselves.

Whenever anything went wrong, as far as I could tell, the landlord, rather than being interested in fixing the issue at hand, invariably went straight into blame mode, trying to find a scapegoat. This lead to a good deal of anxiety, not only to me, but also to my neighbours who’ve been similarly affected by the landlord’s aggression and premature conclusions.

When it came to tenancy renewal, the landlord was frankly living in another world: the increases were stratospheric, and then there’d be the inevitable weeks of negotiation. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me: the anxiety of this every year, together with the disrepairs, made me not view this as a home, but a cash cow for a near-delinquent landlord.

The letting agent, Chestertons, is hardly blameless here. They seem to suffer a huge turnover of staff, one can only imagine why. Thus, any work that needed doing, inevitably I had to start at square one again each time the staff member changed. The left hand simply didn’t know what the right hand was doing. When they wanted to do a flat inspection, the individual assigned could only do Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, which was not convenient for me as I was working away at those times, so I offered Monday, Friday and the weekends. I’m not comfortable about people coming in and out of my home when I’m not there.

I left two days ago. I am wondering if I’ll ever see my deposit: I worked hard to return the property back to its same state, but I can see it being months, if at all that I ever see my deposit back. Update: apparently, the landlord is releasing the deposit in full.

In short: caveat emptor: a beautiful location, beautiful views, but the shit that comes with it may well not be worth your while.