Paul2412

I expect SYP are expecting a complaint in the post from them.

I moved away from Sheffield in 2012 after living in the city centre for 4 years. This thread is pretty depressing. When I lived there Devonshire Green was great, I walked through it just about every day (and lots at night) and never saw anything bad. When I came back to Sheffield at Easter this year there were lots of drunks shouting at eachother on the green but I wrote it off as a once off. Sadly that doesn't seem to be the case... Not sure why the folk of the city centre who work, live and play there need to put up with it. Surely they are a public nuisance and the Police should deal with by banning them from the area they are found to be causing problems in. Always seems to be the case that a mindless few have to spoil it for everyone else.

Echoing what a few other people have said, I found Haybrook to be horrendous. I rented out my apartment with them for around 3 years and had none stop problems. First, the somehow convinced me to list to rent at a ridiculously high price promising that they had a waiting list. 3 months later, the price was finally lowered to something more reasonable. Not a great start with it sitting empty for so long. Next they found a tenant. Although he did pay the rent, he paid nothing else (no electric, mobile, council tax bills) and also damaged the balcony by erecting a huge dish. The property management company and my relatives eventually sorted the issue, Haybrook did nothing about it. When the tenant left, he told them that he's leaving a month early and won't be paying the final months rent. Haybrook simply agreed and told him that his deposit will be used to fund the last months rent. After he'd left, the place was a mess and the remainder of the deposit was nowhere near enough to pay for the clean up. It took a dozen phone calls and threats to take things further until Haybrook eventually paid for the clean up. During his 18 months renting, not ONE inspection report was sent to me (I'd paid for the "management fee" to be given 3 a year). The agent dealing with me was always rude and did her absolute best to fob me off. 2 emails of complaint to her manager simply went unanswered. The next tenants paid up front for a year. They left 3 months early but didn't hand the keys in. After the rental period had expired, Haybrook wouldn't let me in because the keys hadn't been handed in. I explained that I have another set of keys, but apparently I needed to apply for notice to vacate which could take months. I again explained that the tenants left months ago and that I'm not prepared to wait for the non existent tenants to reply to a letter. Because of the above, Haybrook refused to carry out an exit report. I got the property management to do one, and he told me that ever since the tenants entered the flat it had been an absolute mess. Again, no property report appeared to have been carried out by Haybrook. I was so relieved to finally get rid of them. I'll never, ever, ever suggest that anyone go anywhere near this company. On the other hand, I then got Blundells to sell the flat and they were superb. If only I'd chosen them to manage the rental.

I would assume you are correct, but the estate agent are saying that entering before they have done the exit inspection will jeapordise the checkout. I also don't know whether I can legally enter the property (I'm basing that they left based on hearsay, rather than concrete evidence).

I bought at West One in 2009 and lived there until 2012. Pros: It's a very well maintained complex, Pete (the concierge) is excellent Great location for your nights out Soundproofing between apartments is very good The block towards West St and the Plaza is mainly owner occupier/long term renters and not student digs Very secure Depending on position, is also pretty quiet Cons: Anything facing either West St directly or directly onto the Plaza can be noisy, particularly at weekends (mine faces the Plaza, and with hindsight I would have opted for an apartment that faces Cavendish St instead) Not suitable for kids Service charge is quite high (around 1,500 a year) Overall it served me well to live in as an owner occupier and it also has been an excellent investment. I never had a problem renting it out, and the apartment below mine recently sold for around 20% more than I paid in 2009. Hope this helps.

I have a property that I rent out, and the tenancy ended at the weekend. There has been no keys dropped off at the estate agents. Meanwhile I got in contact with the concierge for the building who informed me that the tenants left months ago (despite paying until October 4), have left it in a state and that there is a leak in the bathroom that has caused the floor to sink. The estate agents so far have been very poor (they are wanting to serve an abandonment notice, but have so far provided no updates) and I'm really concerned that the leak will eventually make its way to the apartment downstairs. Does anyone know where I stand legally here? The tenancy has expired, I still have their bond, and apparently they vacated months ago. The "exit" report has not been completed by the estate agent, and the lack of action on this is infuriating me (I've had countless problems with them in the past). As well as venting, I'm just after some advice on whether I am allowed to enter the property given the information above. Thanks!

If the attendees are anything like this lot then I feel VERY sorry for the local residents:

Hi Chez, I might not have made myself clear earlier. With regards an email reminder, this isn't the only thing the product will do as you are correct, most people would ignore it. So the idea is to specify a workflow. A workflow could be: 1) 2 days after the terms have elapsed - Send a reminder by email with a link to settle debt now (either all of the debt, or pay off certain invoices if they can't afford it all) 2) A further 3 days after the terms have elapsed - Send an SMS with a payment link, and informing that further action will be taken if no payment is due 3) A further 4 days after the terms have elapsed - Send a letter with a formal request for funds 4) Either continue to send notifications until all debt is settled, or pass on to a debt collection agency Additionally, we do have an option to add a surcharge (% of overdue debt, which can optionally increase as more time elapses). So, the email reminder is just one of the options. Generally, you aren't going to be sending threatening letters which could jeopardise future relations if a gentle reminder will do (maybe they forgot?).

Thanks for the input guys. Freshbooks is one of the systems that we integrate with, meaning we'll scan twice a day for any overdue invoices and automatically set the ball in motion to chase. So it seems from the feedback here that the volume of invoices you issue is quite low, so it probably doesn't warrant using a system to chase them up. I'd be interested to hear from companies who may issue 50 - 100 invoices per month, do you know anyone on the forum who I could contact to ask a couple of questions?

I'm currently conducting some market research for a new project I'm working on. I don't want to be accused of spamming / selling so I won't mention the product name or website name. The product is a web based service that will automatically chase up overdue invoice payments. If you use an online accounting package such as Xero, Freshbooks and others, it will automatically "poll" these services, add debtors into a "workflow" and then send email, SMS or letters (on your letter headed paper) attempting to chase payment. Debtors are also given a payment page (hosted by me) where they can securely pay their overdue payments (either part payment or the entire debt). The idea is that after initial setup of your workflows (a workflow is a sequence of actions, so email after 2 days, SMS after a further 2 days followed by a letter for example) the process is automated. I have a couple of questions that would really help me out if you could answer: 1) How many invoices do you issue per month? 2) Do you use an accounting/invoicing system online? If so, which one? 3) How do you currently deal with overdue invoices? 4) Does the system above sound like it would be of interest? 5) What would be the most appealing way to pay for this system? a) A flat monthly fee based on the number of debtors (price brackets) b) A small percentage of each fee being chased c) A small percentage of the fee recovered, plus costs associated with email, SMS and letter sending d) A higher percentage of the fee recovered, without the additional costs (essentially no win no fee, as much as it cringes me to say) Thanks for reading this, and taking the time to help me out! PS - My location says Australia, but the company is a Sheffield one!

Comparing this site with Glacier is like comparing apples to oranges unless the download turnaround time is several hours after the request has been made. A better comparison would be Amazon S3, but still S3 is very cheap for geo redundant data.

I'd personally want to see the site using SSL before I upload any files. Is this in the pipeline?

Tasmania is pretty cold, wet and wild most of the year!

Don't worry, here in Australia we have what people like to refer to as "bogans". They are generally rednecks who like to hang out in their yard with their mates, play "doof doof" music, drink VB, have a limited vocabulary and then get in their Commodore moron-motors once sufficiently over the limit. Fortunately they are mainly limited to certain areas!

I used to use Google Apps (Gmail, Drive etc) but since moved to Office 365. It's excellent value and not only do you get online Office but also a copy of Office 2013 to install on 5 machines included in the subscription. Then there's the 1TB of OneDrive space... In my opinion this beats Google Apps hands down.