Simarc Property Management Reviews 194

Recently purchased the freehold for my property. The price was as expected and the service was excellent. I’ve had many dealings with Simarc over the last 12 years as a leaseholder and they’ve always been professional and the staff have always been brilliant. I absolutely can’t relate to the poor reviews on here.

Morally corrupt company.

This company is absolutely disgusting. Not only did they not send me letters when I first bought my property requesting payment but managed to send me a later 6 months later requesting payment plus £100 for each month the payment was late. I actually took them to court and won this case!

Now I am remortgaging and being charged around £400 for receipts of my payments to them which they should give me anyway.

Diabolical.

Procedure for purchasing freehold from Simarc went ahead without problems. Documentation straightforward and price was acceptable according to independent advice.

Simarc were awful to deal with when we purchased our flat: delaying our solicitor's progress by continuous slow responses to requests for basic information.
At the point of extending the lease they were true to form: appalling in their lack of response, delaying tactics and generally frustrating the whole business. We opened discussions in July 2019, and even in their first quotation they wanted to suggest that we paid an additional £129.60 for an urgently required quotation from the Leaseholder! Eventually we completed the Lease Extension on 19th June 2020, 11 months later!
How they can call themselves professional is beyond me. I dread the time we come to sell the flat...

In the process of selling a property after a bereavement and completely unaware that the property was managed by SIMARC and ground rent and other sundries were being charged for as long as they owned the freehold.

Tried calling to enquire about a possible delay in information for the sale to finalise - literally the *only* thing stopping completion, and spoke to the possibly most arrogant and rude employee I have ever had the misfortune to speak to over the phone.

During the conversation, I heard such gems as "did you hear what I just said" and "we take 10 business days to answer the query, but pay approx £200 (some triple digit figure) and we will do it within 24 hours" - I have never been so appalled by the morals and business ethics of this company and I hope I never have the misfortune to ever deal with them again.

If you buy a house with these people as the Freeholders, think very carefully about Enfranchisement first, so you don't ever need to deal with such soulless and arrogant staff.

I don't know how they sleep at night with the way I was spoken to on the telephone. Absolutely appalling behaviour.

I cannot relate to any of these bad views. Yes the price is the going rate for new developments. Always receive my 6 monthly bill with 2 months notice for the payment. Always prompt when asked for a receipt and payments are really easy and take less than 5 mins. Easy peasy.

Throughout the history of the human race there have been Individuals and now companies who feed of the efforts of others. This is SIMARC. They extort money under false pretences by harassment and bullying. Every time one of us gives in and pays up for an easy life SIMARC grow stronger and richer. Do your research, read your lease, go to the Government website and read the advice on the First Tier Tribunal.
I've won one, 3 pending. SIMARC will threaten you constantly through the process. Just stand up and don't be bullied.

Terrible company - each letter they send you costs you £132. They refuse to email reminders and only use letter.

This is minus one star btw!
I have been in my house 40+ years. It is FREEHOLD but Barrett Builders put token ground rents on. When there was a slump and they were struggling financially, Barratt sold the ground rents to these dodgy, so called "solicitors" Slymarc who don't want the £24 pa but rely on extortionate "charges" when ownder or tenants are disconcerted by life events and forget to pay the half yearly £12.
When my mother was very poorly in 2004, I went to stay with my sister who lives near the hospital. For six weeks, it was touch and go if mum would survive and we spent every day and night by her side. My mother died and I returned home to a letter demanding £450 for late payment of the overdue £12. I was heartbroken at the loss of my mother but these pitiless scrotes were like mastiffs with a rag. They fought me for months even asking my mortgage provider for the cash to be paid behind my back on threat of taking foreclosure (of the land). They are evil.
Same during lockdown. I have been shielding. I wrote and told them I would be unable to go out of my house to post an envelope with a £12 cheque. Their reply gave me deadline of 7 days AFTER end of shielding. But someone forgot and instead sent me notice of £90 charge for late payment.
They are criminals devoid of morals and our Government, who have already seen the need for this borderline criminal activity to be outlawed, need to get on with protecting homeowners and tenants from these parasites.

They want to charge me £240 to send me a receipt for rent I have paid! Say no more

SIMARC WANT ME TO REVIEW MY LEASEHOLD PURCHASE FROM THEM, BUT IN THE LAST 6 MONTHS KNOW ONE FROM THE COMPANY HAS EVER SPOKE TO ME ,EVERY EMAIL I RECIEVE SAYS DO NOT REPLY ,THEN THEY CHARGE ME £900 ADMIN FEES FOR A COUPLE OF LETTERS, YES SIMARC YOU ARE A GREAT COMPANY TO WORK WITH.

A terrible company who sit and wait for people to be late with payments to slap them with huge late fees! One neighbour was charged hundreds of pounds because they sent the bills to an unused email address rather than simply call him , they waited for the arrears to mount up so they could add many charges - this is just one example of many . The reviews speak for themselves! When the law changes they will go down the pan thank god !
If you are reading this DO NOT BUY A PROPERTY ASSOCIATED WITH SIMARC YOU WILL REGRET IT !

I bought a flat 4 years ago with long term tenants in situ originally with another company owning the freehold.
Everything with the previous freeholder was straightforward. When Simarc took over the freehold a year ago they very quickly honed in on a so called historic 'anomaly' and demanded money for 'notice of underletting'.
Actually the comapny, who had bought the property and converted the flats 10 year previously and so originally owned the freehold, had kept our flat and rented it out from day one rather than selling it. So it had always been underlet. Therefore I was not entirely sure that we should have been responsible for paying this fee at this point. In the end. after writing to question their demand, I paid up as it was only £38 and Simarc seemed to suggest it was a one off payment to gain historical permission to underlet. It did not seem worth involving a solicitor at this point.
However, less than 6 months later, Simarc want a further £90 'renewed notice of underletting fee' which is apparently at a 'discounted' rate since if the tenants had changed they would want £138.
I am not sure what to do at this point. It is not just the £90 or the £138 but the principle and the fact that I am not sure that they won't ask for more money if I pay this. How do I know, as a member of the public, what my legal rights are without paying even more money to a solicitor? We don't want to sell the property as this will create uncertainty for the tenant.
Simarc make money for doing absolutely nothing at all. There is nothing they need to do in this situation that will involve any cost to them other than posting another letter to me to tell me I owe them money for nothing. The tenant has not changed; no updating of files is required. Zilch.
I absolutely realise that we are lucky because we own this buy to let flat but we try to be ethical and responsible landlords.
Simarc appear, in my opinion, to have no ethics or moral compass. I don't feel that I can trust them at all. I am not at all clear if they are entitled to request the money they are saying I owe; I do not trust that they will not continually ask for more. They appear to rely on the fact that most people will not get legal advice for the relatively small amounts that they request and that we will just pay it if they send enough legal sounding, intimadatory letters.
Avoid Simarc if at all possible. If you are thinking about buying a property to let out or to live in and Simarc are the leaseholders, get legal advice. I may be wrong and they are absoultely entitled to do what they do; my gut instinct says they are stretching things and assuming people will just pay up.

Have been charged more than my ground rent in fines when I never received a bill or a reminder and its impossible to actually speak to anyone.
Secondly found out they charge a percentage when selling the flat AND another fee for management pack.
Complete shysters - avoid like the plague

Don't even want to give this company one star. Want to take them to Land Tribunal for exorbitant ground rent,sub letting fees and buying and selling leasehold fees. Know of no other Property Management Company that charges such rip off fees. Will try Ombudsman.Law must change to rid ourselves of such unscrupulous companies.

Have been charged almost twice my ground rent in fines.
Firstly never received a bill or a reminder.
Secondly have been chasing them for months for clarification, they have been totally uncontactable .
Really poor and unreasonable costumer services representative.

Currently selling my property where Simarc are freeholders. They’re charging me for basic information for my solicitor, the latest £240 to release ground rent information. I’m a part-time working mum of a toddler, so that amount is astronomical to me. Causing me a lot of stress and I hope they can sleep at night as I can’t!

Simarc are absolute cowboys. If you have the opportunity to buy a property managed by them, avoid. They charge ridiculous fees (which I suspect are actually illegal) for the simplest of tasks, and need to be challenged in court.

They tried to charge for ground rent on my property on behalf of the freeholder - I am the freeholder and have never instructed them to collect anything for anyone. I passed this to my solicitor and heard nothing back - no explanation or apology. Be careful to check with any rent demands as they obviously are either sloppy with their paperwork and bill the wrong address or deliberately engage in fraudulent collections.

I've just re-mortgaged my apartment that ground rent is managed by Simarc, and they are requesting £174 for it.

no address change or name has occurred, only who I pay my mortgage to but they are charging me money.

Daylight robbery!