I had been really impressed with Openrent up until I ordered a gas safety certificate from them. I ordered and paid for the certificate on 26 January. They say that the lead time is ‘from 2 days’, so I expected someone to at least be in touch within 2-3 days to arrange a convenient time. I chased them up on 30th Jan to see when I could expect someone to be in touch and was told that " our usual engineer isn’t available to carry out the work on the requested dates". I hadn’t specified any dates, just as soon as possible! They said that they were confirming availability with an alternative engineer and would be in touch. I replied and asked what the timescale would be likely to be, but that got ignored. A week later and I have still not heard anything, and now have a tenant without a gas certificate (because the whole reason for using Openrent was they they implied they could do it quickly and I had already been let down by another engineer - I guess when they say ‘from 2 days’ the operative word is ‘from’). If I had known they were going to take this long, I would have tried to source another engineer locally myself. Now I am in the dilemma of whether it will be quickest to wait for Openrent, or to cancel and try and get another engineer urgently myself.
I always sort out an engineer myself. Why depend on another party?
…because the engineer I sorted to do it in December kept putting it off and hadn’t done it over a month later, so I thought it would be quicker and easier to use Openrent.
Openrent have just cancelled it today and refunded my money without a word of apology. I am appalled. Be interested in feedback (and a public apology) from Openrent on this forum please!
find a gas safe engineer in your area and keep a note of the number, same with a handyman , joiner ,electrician so you always have a number to fall back on Being hands on like that means you widen your understanding of being a landlord …I am a builder and landlord so its ok for me
I was going to use Openrent but now after reading this I will find my own engineer. They make it out to be very professional on the Website. Just wondering if anyone has had an efficient service?
I prefer to use a gas safe self employed individual. Used him on a few places £55 a time always turned up. Love it!
I used the Openrent service and it seemed to go very well at first - except a bit further down the line, the bloke turned out to be pretty much a psycho, getting more and more hysterical and threatening when I recommended him to someone else who he did a crap job for and then demanded payment from me! To the point of my being quite worried by him. Definitely won’t be using the Openrent service again. I later found an online review of the bloke saying he’d done exactly the same thing to them …
Where are you? We specialise in gas safeties and boiler services.
Derby (won’t let me post less than 20 characters!!)
Hi Cath,
Sorry we are several hundred miles away or would have helped out. Best of luck
Hi @Cath2,
We’re sorry that we couldn’t allocate an engineer to your job soon enough. We have a vast network of engineers and are actively adding to it, to ensure any such issues do not occur. We appreciate you flagging this to us, as we will always take note of the instances where a job doesn’t proceed smoothly and promptly.
@Clea, please drop us an email at https://www.openrent.co.uk/faq#i-have-more-questions with more details on your experience. This isn’t acceptable behaviour, rest assured, so we can look into this for you.
George
I previously used OpenRent to arrange an electrical certificate. While the engineer did show up, they issued a certificate with a typo and OpenRent was pretty poor in helping me rectify the issue despite me chasing multiple times. I finally managed to get a revised and correct certificate a month after the engineer attended the property.
dont knock Open rent too much. Its a great way to let a property. Find your own engineer . I do for epc s and gas certificates. I sort my own rental agreements also
I was very happy with the advertising and Rent Now service and would happily use that again (in fact I almost can’t wait for tenants to leave so that I can ditch the agent without argument - I did change the bit in their contract that said I had to pay them fees whether or not they managed the property for the whole period of the tenancy and replaced it with me being able to give a month’s notice, but I suspect it would still cause an argument!) . I have also recommended it to two other landlord friends (one via my own referral and the first then introduced the second so they got an advertising credit too).
I also am not impressed with the Open Rent Gas service. I thought I had 2 appliances that needed checking, but it turns out only one did. So I am asking for the extra £15 to be refunded, but it is proving a nightmare! They just don’t seem to understand and keep sending me calculations of their service costs … the engineer also highlighted something that has been there for years and no other engineer has ever highlighted. Many of them have told me it is not a serious issue at all.
What checks are carried out.
As I have been let down after taking ages to arrange. I have checked him out on the HSE register and he’s not listed. I used one last year who quoted me for a completely unnecessary job.
How do i arrange a refund Please?