I’ve just carried out more research online and found yet another guise of Solitaire Property Management!
This time its in the form of County Estate Management - this time there is no doubt this is Solitaire as they even list the regional offices for them and they are the same as the Solitaire ones! I know this as I’m in receipt of many correspondences from Solitaire to other residents listing the regional offices!
If you want to check if your regional office is also listed please visit this link: http://www.countyestate.co.uk/contact_offices.asp
Paul Rayden is the CEO of County Estate Management and Solitaire Property Management - this is proved by an inteview with Ben Lane from the website News on the Block, this link takes you to the report to back this up!
Now - how much more investigation do we need to do to ask the question - surely how things are setup isn’t legal?
Tags: county estate management, News on the Block, Solitaire Property Management
September 29th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Hello everyone.
I have recently received my (huge) quarterley bill from Solitaire for their ‘management’ and ‘maintenance’ services. Included in the envelope was an invitation to pay my bill by direct debit via a company called ‘Amber Credit’. I have no intention of paying by direct debit, but I was curious so I phoned Amber credit. However they refused to give my any info until I gave them my banking details !
I resent paying Solitaire at all so I am not about to pay them by direct debit - which means I will be paying them in advance - which means Solitaire will make interest from my money. In addition, Amber Credit are not going to offer this service for free - they are going to charge for it. And with direct debits, they can withdraw as much money from your account as they see fit. I am not going to trust my banking details or my money to an organisation in league with the disreputable Solitaire Property Management.
If anyone is paying their Solitaire bill by direct debit they should cancel it today and pay their bills at the last possible moment.
We are required to pay their bills but we are not required to do them any favours.
September 29th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Hi a n onymous
I thought exactly the same when I received mine in regards to the Amber Credit! I prefer to have my own DD setup into my own ‘Bills Account’ so that when they come begging for money its in an account already allocated.
I wouldn’t pay Solitaire / Amber on a monthly basis at all - can you imagine how hard it will be when you want to cancel it! They’ll probably keep trying to withdraw funds after it’s been cancelled and you’ll probably end up being penalised!
I’ve sent a huge e-mail to 8 people in Solitaire including the CEO Paul Rayner today saying that I will not be paying my management fee for the next 6 months, until they provide me with satisfactory information and service. I also copied in the Sales Director of my developer so that everyone’s aware that until things improve they aren’t getting a penny from me!
Fingers crossed - but I’m not counting my chickens! lol
Sheps
October 1st, 2008 at 10:43 am
Hello all.
I have just looked up the ‘Truth about Solitaire…etc’ website via the Yahoo search engine and it is second from the top after Solitaire’s own. I am not an internet expert but If everyone was to look up ‘the truth’ on both Google and Yahoo it is likely to move it into first position.
October 12th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Ugh. CEM are utterly, utterly useless, at least those in the Tunbridge Wells office are. Complaints ignored, lies told, appalling attitudes, documents asked for not sent to leaseholders (even though they’re legally required to), on every occasion they will side with contractor/supplier and not us, they paying customer - their clients. They’re a shining example of how not to do customer service - they seemingly have not one iota of interest in their clients. Utterly, utterly awful.