Hammonds deserve ZERO stars for this review!
HAMMOND PROPERTIES MANAGEMENT LTD (Sidcup) / Company number 10164980
As the leaseholder of an apartment in a small period building in Folkestone (I am 1 of 6 leaseholders) I despair at the dreadful service provided by Hammonds Properties Management Ltd.
Our Freeholder, Three Keys Properties Ltd (who share the same registered office address as Hammonds) announced in July 2024 that Hammonds Properties Management Ltd would take over the service and maintenance contract of our building with immediate effect.
The service provided by The Freeholder and Hammonds to-date has been nothing short of dreadful.
The Freeholder and Hammonds have broken the terms of our lease by not providing audited accounts since June 2022 (We are missing accounts from the last 3 years). Three Keys and Hammonds’ standard reply to our request for accounts, is to tell us: “we are working on providing the accounts”, but 13 months has passed and nothing but empty promises have been produced.
To make matters worse, Hammonds now hold the leaseholders to ransom, by dictating that emergency works must be paid in advance before they will organise any repairs or works (replacing a fire exit door and a door entry system/intercom), even though in 2022 the last audited accounts showed a VERY healthy sinking fund, and in the last 3 years the leaseholders have paid much more in service charge than could possibly have been spent on the building…..!
It seems that Hammonds staff purposely stall for time, hold up emergency works, and will present expensive and unreasonable options for works based on falsely inflated specifications.
It has taken more than a year to get them to order a new 2nd floor exit door, because the existing door was so rotten it could have been blown out of its frame by a strong gust of wind!
Hammonds inaction and lack of local knowledge has also resulted in them trying to impose contractors on us who are located hours away from Folkestone.
Consequently, leaseholders have had to take some matters into their own hands, and have organised the following:
1) weekly fire alarm testing;
2) locating and seeking quotes for a bi-monthly grass cutting and garden service;
3) locating and seeking quotes for a local contractor to replace the rotten exit door;
4) locating and seeking quotes for a local contractor to replace the door entry system & intercom;
5) liaising with the local council to provide new garden waste wheelie bin;
6) ad hoc repairs, installing compliant signage and changing light bulbs etc, and
7) Managing calls to the electric company, (who provide the communal electricity account) because Hammonds seemingly hadn’t noticed or considered the possibility that they would need to pay an electricity bill, so hadn't changed the name and address on the electric account when they took over the management of the building last year!
So while the leaseholders are doing all the legwork, Hammonds staff are apparently ignorant of basic statutory law, and choose to slow down repairs, and avoid answering the majority of our enquiries. Yet, the budget for the annual service charges, for the 2025-2026 period, shows Hammonds have awarded themselves an above inflation increase to their management fee……..
Based on the dire service delivery over the last 13 months Hammonds deserve "zero stars" for this review!