I hand delivered my Notice of Intention to Vacate to Alba Residential office on the 29/4/2011 stating that I was giving the required 2 months notice (8 weeks) in advance to leave the property I currently rent through them on the 30/06/2011, that I would return the keys to them before this date and to contact me to arrange a suitable date and time for a final inspection.

Then on 03/05/2011 they sent me 2 letters that I received on 05/05/2011 stating that there would be a contractor from ACME Design would be coming to look at the property on the 10/05/2011. Yes I thought straight off that they are going to see about renovating the property before reletting it. WRONG!!!!!!!!! (I get the feeling that they are planning on trying to get me to pay for their renovations now). I received a call from them on the 07/05/2011 telling me that they were looking to show the property on the 11/05/2011. To which I agreed not wanting to dispute the other letter in anything but in person. The second letter I received on the 05/05/2011 was Lease end information stating what was required of me. The problem here is that they want me to pay them £450 (a full months rent) to them on the 28/05/2011 but also that I had to return the keys to them by opening time on the 27/06/2011 and that my lease ends on the 26/06/2011 but I originally signed the lease with them on the 30/12/2009 at which point I had to pay a months rent in advance plus a month as deposit plus fees and £29.58(£14.79 x 2) to bring me up to the 01/01/2010 so it should end on the 01/07/2011 which is when they wish to do the final inspection.

Then to finally stick the boot in they called my mobile when I was at work today leaving a voicemail at 16:17 stating that they would be showing my flat again tomorrow at 11:30 only giving 19 hours and 13 mins notice and promptly following this with a text message 16:23 (does this constitute as written notice????) as soon as I got this message on my dinner break at 18:01 I called them back stating this wasn't acceptable as it was to short notice as when I'm working a back shift I don't get home till after 22:00 and was starting early tomorrow so would have to leave home at 06:15 so I couldn't clean the flat for the viewing and in future I would need at least 24 hours notice as stated in my lease but I get the feeing that they will do the viewing anyway.

I am going to follow todays call with another call tomorrow morning.

Can anybody help me with this as its quite confusing with the differences in Scottish and English Letting laws. I live in Scotland.

Thank you all

Hi goth

Welcome to CAG

The guys will advise as soon as they are available.

I am writing on behalf of ALBA Residential and I note your comments made about our company - I think from reading it there is obviously some confusion here!

I would welcome you to get in touch with us in order to explain things to you, as what you have written is incorrect.

Firstly if you have told us you do not want a viewing to go ahead, then we will not come, so do not worry about that. Notice is generally always given via telephone and if we do not hear back from you normally we will text or leave a voicemail, ensuring you get our message. If you get back to us to tell us you are dissatisfied in any way with how the viewings work, then of course we update our systems internally, and we work around you. We do need access to re-let the property for when your lease is over, so we are prepared to be flexible in order to do so, and appreciate your assistance in allowing us to access the property either in your absence or presence.

You pay rent in advance, which means the rent we expect you to pay by the 1st June will be for the month of June's rent. Your deposit amount is retained until after you move out, and then is returned following our final inspection, which is normally the day after your lease end date. This is all detailed in the End of Lease inspection letter sent to you after you've submitted your Notice to Quit.

Perhaps it will be easier to speak about things to help set things straight, so please email me or call me, our number is on the website. If preferred, give me your property address via private email (my email address is mark at albaresidential .co.uk, and I will look into it for you.

Kind regards,

Mark.

Ok but you still avoid the 4 extra days rent your trying to charge me totalling £59.16 when your company will have all the keys. Do you have any comments on that?

As the property is in Scotland, I cannot comment.

If the property was within England and Wales the landlord would have no right of access except to repair - Access to the Property by the Landlord

Well alba called me today having figured out who I am. They were really helpful and have sorted out this whole mess.

I would like to thank everyone who has commented on this thread. Also I would like to thank alba.

Thanks

Glad to see you got some kind of resolution with this bunch, I cant say that echo's my experience with them.

I have rented through Alba for a couple of years, had enough of being messed around and have just gone elsewhere. What I will say for them is that though they are very good at community publicity stunts, they are horrendous as agents for tenants.

They have allowed repairs to go undone for weeks at a time,

have blatantly misled me and were a nightmare when it came to trying to get any deposit back.

I could not recommend them to anyone, however would say, if you must deal with them, keep copies of everything, notes of anyone you spoke too and what they said (because from my personal experience they will each say different things, and worst case deny saying it when tackled about it) and be prepared to walk away with a much reduced deposit after months of wrangling, no matter how clean you leave the place.

I am disappointed (Mordie) that you see fit to continue to complain about our company's service on various websites and blogs after we have invited you to get in touch with us simply by emailing us back, so that we can look into matters for you, and restore your faith in us (should that be what is required) and ultimately improve our service to others, if we have gone wrong somewhere along the line.

Thankfully most of our clients, such as the original enquirer, find our service helpful, honest and down-to-earth, and we receive a great deal of good feedback which we are very proud of.

We cannot help you if you do not get back in touch with your real name, I remain hopeful you decide to do so at some point so that we can help sort things out.

Kind regards,

Mark.