Thank you - if I thought it was something I had done I would have no hesitation in paying, I just feel a bit unfairly treated during this. When we viewed the property the current tenants were still living there, so we naturally assumed it would be cleaned etc before we moved in – how wrong we were! The rent was pretty high, but it’s the price you pay for living in Central London. He is trying to push me into agreeing to these charges as he is ‘leaving at 3pm and wants everything sorted by then’ – I have told him that until I know exactly where I stand I cannot agree to any charges.

I moved out of my old property at the end of June, and am having issues with my landlord making charges. To set the scene, I was sharing this flat with a friend and it was a real state when we moved in. Very old furniture, dirty bathroom, floors, walls, a real state. The only good thing was that the kitchen had just been refurbished, but the flat was in a real state of disrepair when we moved in. We reported everything – to their credit they did send someone to repaint, but the cleaning was totally up to us. We replaced the shower head and rod and tried to make good what we could. Problems continued throughout our tenancy – some dealt with, some not. One thing I reported the very day I moved in (unfortunately over the phone so not in writing) was that my bedroom window was stiff to open and close. Now, 2 months after moving out, he wants to charge me £140 for fitting a new hinge, and says that the window does not close. I pointed out that I lived in that room for a year, including one of the coldest winters I can remember, and that I wouldn’t have been sitting there with the window open! I do not remember seeing an inventory when I moved in – I asked him to forward me an inventory with my signature on it; he has sent over the inventory from before we moved in which I had never seen before and not signed. My old flatmate signed on check out, which I’m worried will be a problem. I worked really hard to try and make that flat livable with no support from the landlord, who always seemed to resent spending any money on it. We had leaks and a pest problem for the whole time we lived there. He has also never given me DPS details, and I am worried we may no be protected as I cannot find anything on the DPS site. I’m not entirely sure where to go from here, as I don’t want to pay for a problem that could have been sorted had they gotten their finger out earlier. Any advice much appreciated!

Thanks Honeybee - I did think that myself but it's sort of natural as I have an excellent relationship with my commercial director. Also I don't want it to be too blatant that we are complaining about him in these early stages, so if it's just me that goes to grab a coffee with him it won't look too suspect. I really don't want things to escalate, would just rather get this nipped in the bud for the good of the team and the company.

My colleague has just turned to me and said 'I don't like coming to work when he's here'. This makes me really sad

Hi all, First post and would be very interested to hear your thoughts. To give you a bit of background, I started work at a company on the 24th September with one other girl. The office I work in had only one member of staff left after several resignations (all very amiable sounding) , and he was appointed manager of this 'new' office. 2 more members of staff started on the 15th October.We all work in media sales. When I interviewed for this role I was incredibly excited - I was interviewed by the commercial director, who is not based here, promised autonomy to do my job as I do best, a chance to earn lots of money and really shape how this new office works. The one thing that is ruining this for all of us is the chap who was appointed manager of this new office. He has had no management training and lacks the common sense / people skills to assume this position naturally. We are all very experienced in what we do (I'm actually more experienced than him!) but we are not treated as so. The autonomy we were promised is non existent, and he is on our backs 24/7, despite us only being here for 2 months and doing a pretty sterling job in that time. Everything that comes out of his mouth is negative, nothing we do is ever good enough and morale is incredibly low. He keeps things to himself, which I believe is to keep power. He wants us to be like robots, doing the job the same way he does it, and is completely unflexible and defensive when we try to counter anything. He particularly focuses his criticism on one member of the team who has tried to bring this up with him, only to be basically ignored and given the same barking instructions as before. He is trying to make 4 experienced people work to his rule, his attitude is 'I'm the manager and what I say goes' and frankly it stinks. He is making us all walk on eggshells and our working days are becoming rather unbearable. I have a meeting with my commercial director tomorrow afternoon (I have somehow ended up as spokesperson!), who I believe will be quite shocked at what is going on here. I would like to get my point across in the most constructive way possible, without coming across like I am whining or b*tching. This guy needs some management training asap, and some coaxing from above to try to work alongside his staff, rather than rule over them. I have no idea how to do this and am racking my brains as to how I can say this without landing myself in it. I wish I could go to my manager directly about this but anything that's been raised in the past has been met with defensiveness and veiled threats. Any thoughts / advice much appreciated!