MetroPM Recensioni 159

More than two months to fix a lift, nearing three for another. Poor repairs and incredibly long lead times. Service charge demand for window cleaning that has not been done. I know a lot of managing agents are bad, but these guys are awful.

Not even sure where to begin with these bunch of clowns!
Inefficient, slow, vindictive, poor communication, unprofessonal, deceitful, and worst of all trying to blame Lessees for their incompetence and failures.
Having read some of the apparently positive reviews here in support of them and standing up for them, I would also say they are misleading and obvioulsy have limited experience with the Company, or misinformed.
There have been a number of disputes and Tribunal Cases involving MetroPM, which may not be obvious as they are Managing Agents and as cases only name the Landlord, MetroPMs name may not appear.
The Property Ombudsman has also ruled against them, and the ICO has found them lacking.
Unfortunately they are retained by the Landlord of one of my properties, for at least 15 years, and I have had nothing but problems with them. They rely on the fact that majority of Lessees are not organised, lack time, knowledge or experience and so can hold on to their contracts once they are employed, and difficult for Lessees to to get rid of them. They feel they are not accountable to anyone as the complaints processes are lengthy and not easy and many Lessees cannot be bothered to follow through.
They also rely on the ignorance, and inexeperience of Tenant Associations, who invariably fail to hold them accountable.
There is no constraint on controlling costs or checks as it is easy for them to add the charges to the Service Charges, and then threaten Lessees with legal action if they challenge these charges. Again preying on lessees insecurities.
All fancy words on websites but lack substance.
Avoid at all costs.

Abysmal -
Would not recommend Metro PM to maintain anything at all never mind a large estate. The communication is basically non existent apart from the semi annual service charge increases and legal requirements. If you call the office they are busy or in ‘meetings’ and will promise to call you back to no avail. The works they arrange are rarely done to an acceptable standard and no one seems to check work completed, but the invoices are paid regardless. I would not recommend Metro PM at all as I find them to be woefully incompetent and sorely lacking any customer service.

If this site contains 'misinformation' as suggested by P. Hadlon, surely the simple solution would be for Metro to claim their profile and engage with their audience? The fact that they have not done so speaks volumes. My own experience of Metro is one of poor communication, and their absence on Trust Pilot would seem to support this.

I believe I live on the same estate as previous correspondents as only a few places would have major works being carried out on a river boundary wall and managed by MetroPM. I live in an apartment required to pay the highest apportionment due to its size and yet have only had to pay 1/3rd of what others claim they have been charged.
No matter what I think of MetroPM, misinformation appears to be rife amongst some leaseholders and does not breed a healthy environment for all leaseholders to live in.

Certain that this company are fraudsters, making money for doing nothing, don't go near them with a bargepole.

MetroPm, like all management agents, have to work with a group of leaseholders, some of whom have never read the lease or made themselves aware of the law covering this sector. As leaseholders we only “own” the right to live in our apartment for the time frame specified as long as we comply with all our obligations in the lease.
The wall repair mentioned in Anon’s review could have been undertaken years before if all leaseholders had complied with their obligations.
It is always easy to blame the landlord and his agents for things happening that don’t suit us but there comes a time when a few individuals cause increase costs and problems for their fellow leaseholders without a thought for what they are actually doing. It’s a pity that those who shout loudest, regardless of the content of their complaint, ruin things for their fellow leaseholders.
It is not very adult behaviour to constantly look for someone else to blame for a situation and not to accept that we are all governed by the lease which in the end is what is or isn’t allowed.
It is also easy to accuse MetroPm of anything they wish to without being held to a reasonable standard of evidence.
MetroPm are also not faultless in the way they dealt with this situation but we all need to look at our own actions too.
In the day to day running of the Estate, over the more than a decade we have lived here, I have found MetroPm to be responsive and helpful even if at times slower than I would have wished. Most people when asked why they chose to buy an apartment’s lease here say it was because of value for money and the fact that the Estate looked well maintained and in good condition.
Rember one man’s value for money is often another’s loss of value.

Worst company around - avoid at all costs.

This company conducts its business in a fraudulent and unprofessional manner. Excessive charges for repairs and property works - £100k per leaseholder each for major structural works to a boundary wall because of environment agency concerns that the wall could collapse into the adjoining river - this has involved demolishing garages, restricting access and limiting parking at the property for well over 2 months. Then when the contractors damage one of the other adjoining walls we are then left to cover that bill as well as Metro refuses to challenge the contractor and make them liable for the repairs.

Emails and service requests go completely unanswered and you are left waiting for days and months for replies and end up having to go direct to the service contractor directly to get work done.

Very poor level of fire safety management with smoke detectors in communal areas left damaged or taken apart by other residents and no repairs carried out so the block is unsafe to live in.

Sadly, horrified,,, where do we start? Communal areas just swept 6 times a year. Payments were raised services cut back all with no notice. Residents left to clean commumial windows dust away cobwebs galore. Poor insurance cover on the building leaving the customer heavily out of pocket. Report of problems are ignored or told will pass the message on. It never gets resolved. Broken fire door for months still needing attention. Endless promises of contractors to attend the now broken door to be repaired as well as the broken other door. But again wasting my breathe. Sorry but wouldn’t give one star but needed to so could complete the review.

Unprofessional and poor quality service. Poor customer service, email ignorance, no follow-ups, and most importantly they do not clean the communal areas properly. Negative experience.

Metro PM have proved to be a caring and considerate company giving a warm personal service to it's clients. They are always happy to advise management company board members in a timely and efficient manner and act promptly when dealing with service charge arrears and matters pertaining to leases.

The worst property management company on the planet.... the only thing that is guaranteed is high yearly charges... they do nothing else. My communal areas are disgusting, never cleaned or serviced. They are the closest thing to legalised fraud in the UK.

Poor management company have no care for repairs

Lived in a leasehold property with this management company for 2 years.
Serious issues with them all the way along until I sold the property, not capable to deal with situations, slow and they do not take or process any complaint either.

The selling process took 6 weeks longer because of their useless service, for £340.

AVOID!

I am a director at a residential development in Solihull. Metro PM took over as property Manager one year ago and their service has been outstanding. They solved a major roof problem which had been problematic for years. In everything they do they are professional, efficient, customer focussed, and they always go the extra mile. They have good contractors which they use, and everything is done on a timely and cost-efficient basis. In my life, both professional and personal, I have had a lot of experience of customer service across different industries - Metro PM are amongst the very best I have experienced. Thank you to the team.

In August 2020 there was a majority vote of the directors (3-2) in favour of reviewing MetroPM's contract, the incumbents having held it for some 13 years.
Even before the contract went out to tender, the two minority directors renewed MetroPM's contract on 07.11.2020, without any consultation, thus negating the opportunity for residents and tenants of Barclay Court to procure a cheaper and more competitive service. So MetroPM ignored the majority vote in order to retain their contract, even though it was the intention of the three majority directors to seek a quotation from them.

Anna Ayres from Metro has been fantastic, we have been trying to sell our flat for some time now. She would always promptly answer the buyers enquiries and turn information around very quickly. She goes above and beyond! Thank you so much Anna for making the process so smooth.

An organisation that accepts a minority director vote, so that they can retain a contract.

Before you commit to them managing your property portfolio, or your apartment block, just ensure that you carry out due diligence.

I would hate you to have the problems we had.

Just very average or worse. Requests for building maintenance ignored or not processed properly. In particular the build up of rubbish around communal areas that no residents take ownership of. I've been left feeling like the building they are supposed to be managing is mostly neglected.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY.

Let me start this review by saying I am a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW) and in my near 30 year professional career, I have never come across someone as dishonest as Matthew Arnold (MA), the owner and Managing Director of this company, MetroPM. These are my reasons.

I was a volunteer Director of the freehold company that owns the apartment block in Edgbaston Birmingham where I live. I noticed the amount we had paid for the gardeners on our site, for the previous 2 year period, was approximately double our contracted rate. MA told us it was for legitimate extras. I doubted this could be the case so requested copies of the actual invoices. It took nearly 3 months and repeated requests before MA finally forwarded these to me.

It was clear, to both me and one of my fellow Directors (one with considerable business experience) and others we showed them too, that almost every invoice for the previous two years had been “padded” with extras that either had not been carried out or were already included in our contract. Every invoice was approved for payment by MA. We concluded it was serious enough to report it to the authorities as suspected fraud. On challenging MA he said that other than forgetting to reduce the standard contracted rate from one year to the next, there was nothing else wrong with the invoices.

However, I later uncovered evidence, in an email from MA to the gardeners, sent many months BEFORE my inspection of these invoices, that he was already talking to them about “the charges levied without agreement” & “these specific charges which are perpetual, unapproved and probably not correct” & “I can't believe for example that so much time and cost was incurred in cutting hedges on a monthly basis when this formed part of the standard contract in the first place”. It seems clear that MA knew far more than he was letting on.

He later contacted the gardeners saying “it seems to me that works have been invoiced from month to month in identical form, regardless of whether that scheduled work has actually been carried out” & “These outstanding issues are placing my company at risk”. MA has NEVER admitted any of this to our leaseholders, this was discovered by chance in an email between him and the gardeners. Our development has not received ONE PENNY back into our bank account to reimburse us for these overcharges.

I have also uncovered evidence that this was happening on a number of developments, all managed by MA and using the same gardeners.

The dishonesty does not stop there. MA was also employed as Company Secretary of our development, and in that role he sent out documents to our leaseholders full of lies about me, resulting in an EGM which removed me as a Director and so stopped me investigating any further. These lies were so damaging I had neighbours heckling me, snubbing me and closing their door in my face. My only recourse was to bring a defamation lawsuit against MA. This was a success and forced him to pay me substantial damages for his lies.

Also, during the EGM process, I and one of my fellow Directors asked for a copy of our Register of Members so we could contact leaseholders ourselves. Contrary to UK Company Law, MA refused to hand it over. MA eventually sent a copy to us where he had changed the contact details to make it impossible for us as Directors to even contact our own shareholders.

To doctor the Register of Members of a Company is a CRIMINAL offence. To cover up a fraud is a CRIMINAL offence.

We are still waiting for Action Fraud to investigate so I would urge any leaseholders who have experienced similar issues on other developments to come forward and report their suspicions to Action Fraud and RICS.

I'll finish where I started – DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY