F Reid

In response to the review left by Sarah: The effect James Gibb are having on you is unfortunately horribly similar to the effect they have on thousands of people. They behave like criminals because the licence they're given by government to operate as factors allows them free rein to behave criminally and get away with it. I've contacted three ministers for housing/justice at the parliament over the past few years - Shona Robison, Angela Constance, Paul McLennan - and the current first minister. They were all the same - they showed absolutely no interest in me or the problems I was explaining to them but, oddly, one of the housing ministers took the effort to make sure a factor didn't suffer for blatantly flouting the law. Write to your MSP and others in parliament. Ultimately, they are the ones promoting this type of factor, allowing them to make people's lives a misery and turning a blind eye. Also, see if you can get your neighbours to agree to sack Gibb. I'll never forget the day I was in a position to sit down and write a dismissal email to this outfit. I wish you all the best.

In response to Thomas Carlton's review, James Gibb are owned by Strathspey Capital. This might explain their emphasis on collecting money over customer service.

Great care is obviously taken to window-dress Gibb as a respectable and professional organisation (which I gather it was before Strathspey bought it).

The Scottish Government in the meantime fails to enact the legislation that they drew up with the 'input' of factors and somewhat misleadingly presented to homeowners as the means by which factors would be made to operate to an acceptable standard.

The Government also continues to publicly endorse (at the tax payer's expense) the worst factors by keeping them on the Factor Register, even when they know that these factors are constantly breaking just about every rule in the book.

Factors know they can get away with anything.

Homeowners' concerns are brushed aside and unscrupulous factors are quietly allowed to carry on trading.

We need to know why.

Response to Ken Long - One of your posts received a response from Gibb which included: "We cannot instruct work on the say so of one or two homeowners" & "The property Factors Act 2011 Code of Conduct provides governance for factors." They simply choose to ignore the Code, and it's never enforced by government anyway. Also, they tried to impose common insurance on our block by consulting with only two or three owners, going behind the other owners' backs. This is contrary to what they quoted in their response, contravenes the Code and is completely unlawful. They are the lowest members of the last uncontrolled industry. For some reason, they and their peers are shielded from any meaningful punishment. I would like to know why.

If it wasn't so serious it would be laughable. The 5 star formulaic and non-specific reviews here are clearly a desperate in-house attempt to up their rating. On their own website, the reviews read like a series of employee performance reviews or school report cards. Some 'wonderful development managers' mentioned haven't worked for Gibb for over three years. This should be looked into.

Re: Review from David: I agree. Everyone should direct their complaints to this government minister. Then the minister might be forced to do something about these rogue companies. I have written to him seven times about another factor who has broken every condition for remaining on the factor register. In spite of this, their registration was actually renewed. The government minister refuses to engage and it's clear from the responses I've received that he has no interest in helping homeowners and every interest in assisting factors. - that in itself is a concerning issue.

I'd like to add my voice to NCP's opinion about the legislation governing factors. It's completely one sided in favour of the factor. This is mainly down to the fact that the government was either ill-equipped to frame effective legislation or favoured the factor. Either way, the biggest and worst factors designed much of the rule book (which is next to useless) and the punishments (which are no deterrent). They also ensured that complaints against them were dealt with outside the court system and through a tribunal which has a revolving door for the worst offenders. A homeowner has to become an amateur lawyer to present a complaint against a factor, and the process is stressful and exhausting. If you complain to the government about a factor, they either ignore you or take the factor's side, no matter how bad the factor is. The arrangement is murky and requires serious investigation.