Speirs Gumley Reviews 80

Last year the caretaker was given not only a considerable raise but also a bonus. This year? Another 9% raise.

CM (name abbreviated) has a history of being very generous with other peoples (those paying the service charge) money, but not her own. How about she take a pay cut to fund this? We are already paying more money to maintain the flats each month than we pay the council to maintain the whole of Glasgow including adult and social care, etc and they want to give excessive pay increases to their staff.

CM how about at a time when mortgage costs are very high you stop at the bonus and large pay increase last year.

had a private flat for less than a year and a half,repeated bills for repairs of water ingress,NEVER fixed properly....now asking for a minimum upfront payment of £10000, to fix £600.000 to a £1,000.000 of damage they have not repaired since 2015...whistle ya crooks...lawyers are on it

Just received an email from a SG employee saying we cannot discuss concerns openly with other residents, snippet below;

"Unfortunately, I have been made aware that some homeowners were not only in disagreement with the decision of the majority to give (name redacted) both a pay rise and a bonus, but have also been openly discussing this at the property with other owners and residents".

The above does not apply to me as I am 200 miles from the property, have no contact details for other residents, and I had no issue with the pay rise. However-if you can take residents money but not their criticism, rather than mass email everyone telling them not to discuss something openly (as is their every right), you should take the time to discuss the increase in service charge during a time of unprecedented financial hardship for many.

If you can take the money you can take the criticism that comes your way (again clarifying this open discussion did not apply to myself).

Spiers Gumley must be run from North Korea but here you can't expect to censor the people paying your wages. Speaking of wages the caretaker at the Matrix, Cowcaddens Road gets £27,000 p.a. not including bonuses so very much above the market rate.

This company is an absolute disgrace. The park is an absolute disgrace. They cut the grass and leave the pieces of cut grass to rot on the grass and is NOT good for children and old people to manoeuvre.

I am in complete agreement with all the comments made in the previous bad reviews.
My experiences with this company go back over 40 years when it was owned by the Gumley family. The current ownership has taken all the bad parts of the old regime and added some more of their own. Scandalously overpriced and take inefficiency to a new level with some very dubious and unethical behaviour towards their "clients". They pick and choose what part of buildings maintenance and repair suits them and constantly make excuses for their failure to repair basic security measures. Their management of rented properties for landlords is just a money pit for repairs and badly executed repairs and their so called property managers swan around in company cars and behave as if they were the owners of the property and the legal owner has little or no say in what happens to their properties. They do not listen reasoned argument and disputes when the owners question the viability of repair bills. I was charged £75 for a plumber to be called out to one of the flats I own because the washing machine wouldn't empty it's water, it turned out that the tenants had pressed the stop on full facility on the machine and it was waiting for human input to restart the emptying cycle. The call out plumber charged £72 to press this button and no amount of reasoning or explanation would budge this management company from billing me for the work. The same plumber also changed a kitchen sink tap which was reported as faulty with a smaller one which behaved in the same way as the original tap and also now caused the water to miss the sink and no amount of reasoning would budge the property manager from his position that the work was done correctly, despite him soaking his own trousers when he operated the tap. It tuned out that the original tap hadn't been faulty but a pressure valve had been turned off probably by the tenants. This was only discovered when I was preparing the flat for sale, I had become sickened by the attitude of Gumleys and also the fact that almost 50% of the rental income was being taken as fees and repair bills. Sadly it is the case that all flats, [and also some terraced houses as it happens], in Glasgow have the legal requirement for a factor written into their missives. It's now the first thing I ask when purchasing a property, Who is the factor?

You don't often have a choice, but these people are crooks. The whole thing is an absolute scam.

I have given S&G, every opportunity to sort this, they have not. I live in a BELLWAY homes estate , taken over by this company, to upkeep our general area….they haven’t been touched for a whole YEAR!
The blame game being played between two poor companies.
AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE !
I have written complaining, no interest, written to their director, not interested, but they don’t want my pay,ents to stop!
What an absolute disgrace of a company

This company is one of the most unprofessional companies I have ever come across . They take money from Owners and Tenants under pretext of doing professional service. Unfortunately we are stuck with them as had no choice, inherited them when moved into the property. They have on numerous occasions communicated conflicting information and used Covid-19 as the excuse for not carrying out basic services and diligence. They are motivated purely by extracting as much money as possible for the least effort. Shame on them and avoid if you are looking to engage their unprofessional services. On several occasions fellow neighbours have reported issues and denied all knowledge of been contacted. Fortunately I have only had to endure them for 18 months and was warned by other neighbours of how bad they are. Regrettably my neighbours opinion have been vindicated. I cannot believe company’s of this nature are allowed to trade in such a manner and will be investigating who to contact from an audit perspective as the service levels are not commensurate with monies they receive.

As a neighbour of a SpiersGumley property I would advise everyone to avoid these factors at any cost.
With ongoing water damage to my tenement because of building works to their property over 3 years ago they're as far from proactive and responsible as you can get.
Negligent describes them accurately

I've now experienced Speirs Gumley as both tenant and neighbour of tenant. The former was a similar low quality experience to most letting agents, but the latter was beyond anything I'd expect. We lived below a flat managed by SG for five years before a family was moved in who terrorised us with noise like I've never heard from so few people. We spoke to Lauren at SG several times who simply advised the landlord refused to 'allow' them to take any action. We eventually decided to move out after 6 months of living with it, and in the last week of being there experienced a leak from the flat above. SG didn't have anyone attend for 48 hours, and when they did the tenants refused to let them in so we ended up paying out of pocket for a repair from below following significant damage.

Hi, I am writing concerning the residents access to the car parking at St. Andrews Square, Glasgow. Can anyone support me, that there are maintenance issues with the operation of the fob keys and the opening/closing of the security shutter doors in the last 3 or 4 years please?

I completely agree with all the previous reviewers. Unfortunately they are our factoring agent for one of the properties we own. They are without doubt by far, the worst and most expensive factoring agent we have had, and we have had experience of a few!. Like all factoring agents in Scotland they are of course completely profit driven, and the new Scottish legislation doesn't have enough teeth to enforce sanctions and penalties on factoring agents who clearly do not adhere to their own 'best practice' guidelines. I believe property factoring management should be taken out of private companies and be instead governed by local or national governmental agencies or at least ensure the law is tougher on these private companies. They work within a complete monopoly because they know that individual flat owners cannot easily change to other factoring agents unless there is an agreement within the whole building to do so, and of course, this is near impossible. Speirs Gumley take no responsibility whatsoever for anything and get paid management fees regardless, nor do their contractors or sub contractors at any time. It doesn't matter how many errors they make or ex sub contractors make, the owners still have to pay regardless.

WORST LETTING AGENCY IN GLASGOW: Don't go with them if you thinking to get even a SINGLE PENNY from your deposit.

1. Unprofessional Staff (Especially Mr. Scott Johnson)
2. They will NEVER return your DEPOSIT, no matter how clean and in how perfect condition you are giving back the flat to them. Me and many of my friends have faced the same problem.

My experience is as a tenant with Speirs Gumley is worst.
They will be good with you until you are with them, the day you notify to move from the property they will take a big U-turn and suddenly become very unprofessional, rude and unresponsive.

I have to use Speirs Gumley as a factor as they manage the buildings in which l own a property. If it was not near impossible to change or get rid of the factor all together, I would. They Excell at invoicing for work that never seems to get done, or work that has not been passed by tenants. Not to mention the cost of said work is extortionate. The work is carried out at the lowest standard with the highest price. Speirs Gumley are a nightmare to get hold of, rarely reply to emails and when they do are so reluctant to help, downright rude and extremely unprofessional.

Terrible agent. One to be AVIODED at all cost. They have wrongly charged everyone in our building for years and instead of correcting it have come in high handed with lawyers in fancy cars to demand more money from those that have already been overcharged. Now they have just taken deposits and gardening funds from us. Don't know if this is legal or theft but either way this is a highly immoral and upsetting thing to do. Companies that operate like this should not be allowed to exist.
Also one person in our building got behind on their payments, now they have taken the money from everyone else but are still collecting it from the other person too!
I can't afford to take them to court to get all my money back. It's so unfair.
Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.

I have to use Speirs Gumley as a factor as they manage the buildings in which l own a property. They are good at invoicing but no work seems to get done. They hire substandard trades people that have not been vetted or even qualified to carry out the work no sooner the trades person has left that the work has to be redone and we are forced to pay again.
I had problems with the buildings insurance as l had to make a claim for water damage the factor gave the insurance company the wrong details so they could not find me in the end a solicitor had to trace me.
We are never asked to pay in a nice way just sent a demand for payment. I find the factor as much use as a chocolate teapot l do not think they could organise a pie from Greggs.

As Speirs Gumley are the factor to the building that l live in was a natural choice as letting agents or so l thought big mistake. They bought items for the property without approval no matter the cost they hired a tiller on my behalf to do a small tiling job in the kitchen as l just had new windows fitted the job was done by a cowboy who even badly damaged the window sills work cost £202.80 an independent trades person in that field informed that the tiles cost £20 for that job but the guy used the wrong ones. I now have to replace the tiling work that was done and the window sills out of my own pocket. Problems only came to my attention once the tenants vacated the property an inventory was not prepared prior to tenants moving in or moving out of the property no inspection was done after the 6 month letting period as promised.

I noticed straight way the damage to the property and informed Jacqueline Balogun who was supposed to manage the property (jacqueline is also a director of the company) She got all defensive and just gave excises and no answers to any of my questions the cleaners took three attempts to clean the property before l could take it back.
There was items that where removed/stolen from the property that was never recovered. My complaints where never resolved or dealt with in a proper manner l was treated like a child as if l where the problem. In the years that l have been using letting agents Speirs gumley have proved to be the worsted by far l have ever encountered or even heard of.
I would not recommend their company as a factor or selling agent or even letting agent due to the unprofessionalism shown & displayed what l encountered was shameful and appalling.

On a last note l have received from Speirs Gumley confidential information that was sent to me by mistake on clients three by post and one by e-mail that contained clients bank details, credit checks; copy of pasport;and references when l informed speirs gumley all l got was a threatening and rude e-mail. Makes you wonder who else is receiving this sort of information and treatment.