Simarc Property Management Reviews 194

Even 1 star is too much for these, absolute no customer care, impossible to communicate with. How they get away with it is something else.

They Appear to operate Extremely Unscrupulous Practices
I would think they will be subject to investigation soon. BBC Watchdog Programme
Channel 4 Dispatches
Martyn Lewis ITV
They appear to bully and threaten clients. They lack understanding of their own lease agreements.
We felt extremely threatened by them.

Freeholders - Stay away from this company it's not worth it
Home purchasers - Think twice if you see the property you want to purchase is managed by this company, it will materially increase conveyancing costs and time taken and ongoing costs.

SIMARC is an example of a predatory intermediary between Freeholders and owners of leaseholds. They add no value, however make sure to charge high administration fees for everything. If you want to sell your property get ready for 'seller's pack' fees of at least 300 GBP for 3 sheets of paper.

When purchasing a property I was required to pay GBP 627 JUST TO REGISTER that I'm the owner, that's right, to register my leasehold. Then I found out that my 2m square basement storage room is on a second lease so had to pay ANOTHER GBP 627. That is 1254 GBP JUST TO REGISTER MY OWNERSHIP. This is a disgusting example of price gouging.

To put that in perspective: to register my property legally and start to pay ground rent i had to PAY THE SAME AMOUNT OF MONEY TO SIMARC I PAID MY SOLICITOR FOR THE ENTIRE CONVEYANCING which took 4-5 months and countless meetings.

Having owing property for now 2 years I find my ground rent increase a third time!
This time by a large amount which I find worrying to be honest. I can’t wait until the day the government step in and stop companies like this robbing home owners like myself. If future rises like this continues to happen then I will be in an unfortunate position were I will struggle to sell my house.

Awful awful and awful. Legalised criminals. Charges are extortionate. Customer service is non-existent, but with no other options as a leaseholder, what can you do. Companies like this should not be allowed to trade, cause stress and misery for many.

Don't write these often thankfully, but Simarc have pushed. I need to renew my lease to enable me to sell my flat, and it is valued at only £70k, but they want £15k to extend the lease. They know I have no option so taking advantage!

Demanding ridiculous amount for Notice of Underletting fee. According to most tribunal cases it's a load of rubbish. Suggest google "simarc tribunal" and download all the case reference. Don't get jipped. Run by Britain's wealthiest hedge fund manager to milk us to the max at time of super inflation and cost of living.

I acted for my sister who is suffering from Altzeimers in the purchase of the freehold for her property.
Initially I had difficulty being allowed to speak for her until I sent in my POA documents, but although it was frustrating I understand the need for security and acting within the law.
Once they has my documents they could not have been more helpful in pointing me in the right direction, invaluble advice on how to fill in the legal forms, and once the sale had gone through sending me additional advice on how to finalize the transaaction.
In short I could not have done this without their help and could not have been more helpful

I have not actually come into contact with this company as of yet but, I am just going through all of the legal requirements to purchase a house and we were sent the contract from our solicitor today and also notes for us to read through. We were aware of the ground rent due which is supposed to be £12 per month. There was a paragraph in the notes about us having to pay £360 for a company called simarc to let the existing land owner know who has taken on the new lease.
Straight away I phoned our solicitor to question this…. She advised that it’s out of her hands and we have to pay it, she said it’s the one company who charge the most in the uk😳 she also said that to do this (send a letter/email) all other companies usually charge a fee of around £10/£15. She said she doesn’t know how they are getting away with it🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️And that’s a solicitor….. 😳
So reading some of these comments on here is making me think about buying the actual property? Don’t know if we want all the hassle of trying to defend ourselves every month when they decide to criminalise you for trying to pay your ground rent on time🤷🏻‍♂️
Disgusting practices, which don’t make me shocked in this country in this day in age…… corrupt the whole country from top to bottom…. 😡😡

Does this company ever read through these reviews - they are amongst the worst I have ever seen. Does Simarc not think they warrant a response. Here are some of the reviewers comments: Disgusting, disgraceful, fraudulent, complete cowboys, company should be put on Rip-Off Britain, morally corrupt, daylight robbers, vile, crooks, pisspot company. My opinion mirrors many of the comments - they seriously overcharge for every service and god forbid anyone who makes a late payment - the charges become extortionate. They should be investigated.

We have recently moved house which in itself was unnecessarily anxiety ridden & took nearly 6 months for it all to be sorted. We were fully aware that our new house would have ground rent to pay on it as did our old house so knew it would have a management team in place to deal with it. We finally moved in to our new home on the 8th of July 2022, nearly all settled in & around 7 days later received a letter from Simarc informing us that they hadn’t received payment of the outstanding balance, needed payment within 14 days or will be escalated…WE KNEW ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT THIS AND WAS LIVID !!!! I rang Simarc immediately & spoke to Sophie & explained everything to her & she was absolutely brilliant & very empathetic to our situation. The reason the letter had gone out was because of the incompetence of our solicitor who hadn’t paid what was due on our behalf as should have been done BEFORE we even moved into our new home !!!!! I assured Sophie I would contact my solicitor about it that day & instruct them to contact Sophie who could explain things of what needed to be done as a matter of urgency. Thankfully a few days later I received an email from Simarc to inform me that it had all been paid and that there was zero owed. Everyone I have dealt with at Simarc have been absolutely brilliant, extremely professional & empathetic to our (what was) very stressful situation. I rate them 5/5.

I imagine they have based their business model on the one in Christmas Carol, everything is geared towards every last penny for effectively nothing. This should have been stamped out years ago.

I recently had to make contact with Simarc. Sophie and Sharon went above and beyond to help me and have continued to do so since.
What a great asset to Simarc and I am truly grateful for both their input, advice and support

Disgusting practices by a money shark that does nothing for the made-up exorbitant ground rents that they charge to leaseholders. My ground rent is £200 and have only allowed me 3 weeks to pay but have decided that I wasn't fast enough so they've added another £138 in letters, an extra 69% of my original bill, this needs new legislation to stop people in more affordable housing being victims of daylight robbery.

I have a mortgaged property ,been here for 3 years and was never aware of a £180 ground rent payable to Simarc property management until I received a bill of over a £1000 pounds for £513 in ground rent and £492 in collection costs ,o phoned them they said I was sent 13 letters ? Big lie because I didn't know the company existed until today ,they are scammers if you ask me .going to get my solicitor involved in the matter .

Very crafty company. Tried charging me £210.00 for copy of the leasehold. They even stated they would not guarantee that they could provide. I got it £25.00 online in 5minutes. Questioned how they could deem a £120.00 as a 'reasonable' fee for notice of underletting based on the fact that they tried to charge me 8 times the usual charge for a leasehold copy.

Someone please put this company on Rip Off Britain!!!

I am being charged ridiculous fees for a Deed of Covenant by Simarc for underletting the property who quote paragraphs 3.22 and 3.23 of the lease which does not mention such a charge. I have other similar investment properties and I am not asked to pay such fees. Simarc wrote to me saying 'we believe the freeholders Notice fees are set at a reasonable level' (Simarc's missing apostrophe, not mine). However, I believe the fees are unreasonable. I shall be taking advice.

Tried to pay my ground rent early. Wouldn't allow me to make a payment early, then due to illness missed the due date (I had no correspondence at all from them as a reminder until after the date was missed) then I was charged a late fee. Complete cowboys.

This property management company have suddenly asked for the sum of £141 to be sent to them (renewable every year) on the sudden pretext of having to register the name of my tenant along with a copy of the tenancy agreement. They claim that this is a term in my lease but I can find no reference to it in the lease.
The copyright of the tenancy agreement belongs to my letting agent and I am not comfortable with sharing the details of a third party with them.
I have owned the flat on a 999 year lease for the last 6 years and it was already tenanted when I bought it. The previous management company never demanded such information. This seems like a pretext to set up a gravytrain lasting into the next century.