The Lowe Group Reviews 116

Had a really bad experience when I lived in a Lowe property. We had a mentally unstable housemate who broke several contract clauses repeatedly which were reported to Lowe on several occasions and Lowe would not evict her even though we had evidence. I left the property and stayed away on several occasions because I was genuinely worried about my safety in the house, she tried to kick my locked bedroom door down once and even physically assaulted one of the housemates while drunk but this still wasn't enough for Lowe to evict her... They were more concerned that if they evicted her for breaking the clauses and she harmed herself it would look bad on them as a company but they weren't concerned about the physical danger the other 5 members of the household were in by letting her remain. She would sharpen knives while staring at me as I was trying to work from the kitchen so I would end up locking myself in my room all day until someone else came home. I was too stressed to be in the house with her a lot of the time but also didn't trust to leave the property incase she tried to burn it down out of spite when no one in the house would talk to her anymore. We had the police come over on an instance, it was a pretty traumatic living experience in all honesty.

I was with them for almost three years and I got to experience from the inside how terrible they are.
They increased the rent an insane amount every year (about 20% in total) while being less and less careless about the guardians every day.
Once we had a power it and we were two weeks without electricity or heating, it was
November, it was so horrible. When tried to contact them about it I just received rude, unprofessional and unhelpful responses, everyone I talked to seeking for help was really defensive and couldn’t tell me when the problem was going to be fixed. We tried to get our rent back for that time and we got ignored.
Same happened with countless problems (leaks, broken showers, security issues)
They go about as an affordable and caring company and the are just the opposite. It seems like it might have been like that in the past but is not the case right now.
Do not recommend.

If you like faulty fire alarms that randomly sound at all hours of the day and night, living without heating during cold English winters, leaky ceilings, being harassed at all hours of the day, being locked out of your room, and having important emails regarding your living situation ignored - this is the company for you! This is the most greedy, obtuse, and heartless cooperation I have ever had the misfortune to interact with, run by the most uncaring group of asinine individuals I have ever met.

Their properties are extremely overpriced for what they are, to begin with, but also they tend to increase their licence fee every year, by quite a lot.

This results in most of the spaces being occupied by couples resulting in over congested properties but they don’t seem to care, as long as they fill their spaces asap.

Lack of good maintenance in guardianship properties is quite common, as guardians have limited rights, but I think what sets Lowe apart is the complete lack of organisation and their rude attitude towards guardians.

You could talk to them in the nicest way possible, but some of their staff seem to have just a natural lack of empathy and manners.

I think they really need to revaluate their approach as they are gaining quite a bad reputation amongst people who have been guardians for a while.

I've been with Lowe for 6 years, it was less than a year old when I took my first place. Back then it felt like they actually cared about the guardian experience and it was a collaborative relationship with the guardians being treated as human beings and the company making lots of nice noises about building communities and supporting creative and key workers.

Since then it has slowly degenerated into what can only be described as a faceless corporate experience that seems, from our viewpoint, only intent on extracting as much money as possible from whoever they can in order to profit from the broken housing market. They don't treat guardians as responsible adults, refusing to engage on many issues and doing the absolute minimum, or sometimes less. Their usual reply is 'if you don't like it, we have many other properties...'.

To be fair, a lot of the issues are pretty standard for the guardian way of living but previously you would be paying significantly less than normal and this would be part of the compromise. Lowe however seem to want to position themselves as a 'Premium' guardian company, with fees to match, but the experience is much like all the others.

Other than getting people into the property as soon as possible, the way that they run the properties is very authoritarian, even when property licences are trying to help and be as cooperative as possible. They make it very clear that we don't have any rights whatsoever, to the point where they change the term from guardians to licencees.

I've had an awful experience with LOWE. There is a faulty fire alarm in the building which beeps loudly every 2/3 hours. Not only do LOWE refuse to fix it properly but they have accused us of damaging it. They have denied me compensation and frankly been quite rude. I suggest you avoid them.