Complaint regarding villa hire

[mamabear]

We recently returned from Florida and had a terrible experience with the villa we hired. We found the villa through holiday lettings @ tripadvisor but engaged privately with the owner. We agreed T&C's and signed booking forms but there were big problems with the villa when we got there. To name a few, even though the documents said there were alarms/locks on the pool patio doors there were not and a large block of wood was used to stop the doors being opened. The air conditioning broke at the start of our second week and the owner refused to get it fixed offering 3 $9 desk fans as a solution. We had small children and sick parents with us so this was not an option. Despite all the documentation saying the management company would help, they couldn't get hold of the owner and when they did they couldn't do anything is they wouldn't agree. All the documents said we could contact the owner and whilst the owner answered us for the trivial issues when it came to the big issue with the air con, the owner ignored all our calls, texts and emails. The management company let it slip that the owner was selling the house so not really interested in spending money on it so we guess that's why we had problems. Is there any laws/rules out there that we can use to help get some compensation as we had to move villas in the second week and pay for this., Thanks

[florida4sun]

Hello,
firstly I presume you did not book the villa from this site? To complain you can try the Better Business Bureau but it is a bit of a waste of time as it has little or no power. To complain at the lack of alarms (they are a legal requirement if other features such as a pool safety fence are not in place) go to the Dept of Business and Professional Regulation in Florida http://www.myfloridalicense.com. You can also check if the property is licensed for rental (doubtful if no pool safety features were in place). Next time book through a reputable site, take recommendations and do not be frightened to pay a little extra for quality. There are some amazing homes for rent on this very site. Good luck.

[Gerry Reed]

I am sorry you have had such a bad experience and like Martin would like to say that there are many high quality villas available.
Unfortunately, often due to guests always looking for the cheapest rate (please note I am not saying this applies to you or the villa you booked) many owners under price their villas in order to get bookings and then can not afford to licence and maintain them to an acceptable standard. They then are forced to sell the villa as it is no longer in a sate that can be rented.
We also advertise our villa on Trip advisor and know that most villas do have reviews from previous guests but unfortunately a villa can 'go down' very quickly. Next time you could also ask the owner for details of their Management Company, we would always be happy to give details of ours, and you could check directly with them about the state of repair of the villa. All villa can have 'break downs' but these should be repaired quickly and I fully agree that a fan is no replacement for A/C.

Sue

[LiesaAnna]

I'm really sorry to hear this.. sometime ago we wanted to rent the usual house we used but the owner had already bookings in place for that period, so we chose one 5 doors away from his... the owner was through vrbo thought he was 'vetted' etc... when we got there the pool was cold, i need warm for joint problems, took 3 days to heat up... shouldve been cautious when we saw just 2 pieces of garden furniture which was 1 sun chair and one beach chair u know the type u use on the sand... various things were outta place throughout the house the toilet had urine down it with the sanitised label across it... it was urine no cleaning fluid! then the aircon broke down!! the owner said WE had broken it!!! we NEVER touch these boxes as we dont know what to do so always leave well alone... my husband and son decided to try and sleep outside... 2.30am!! next day still not fixed as it was labor day weekend... bank holiday and when they did get someone out it turned out the aircon unit had blown up so needed a whole new system... we had friends (from here) lend us a big oscilating fan... then other members from here helped us and we moved into the origional house a few days later when the guests had gone at no cost to us other then cleaning fee... some truely amazing people around... dont be put off from doing the same again use a reputable company such as this ask questions no one minds!!! its a lot of money and time and effort sorting out this kind of holiday, the owner from the house we left refused to give us a refund saying 'the house is there u refused to stay it it' he let it out a day or so later!! so he got paid twice... greedy man!!
xx [grouphug]

[Andrena]

It is so disappointing when this happens. We are always happy to answer questions and like most owners on this site we would always rectify any problems as soon as humanly possible. I'm so sorry that you and such a disappointment.

Andrena

[DaveL]

One question from a practical point of view.

In which country is the owner based?

If the answer is the UK then all is not lost. The small claims court will deal with issues like this. The cost is very low and if things happened as you have stated then you should have no problems winning the case.

It is not to hard to find out if the property is licenced on the county web site if you have the name of the owner and the management company. Also was there a framed current licence on display?

If the owner is selling then you may want to inform them unless they offer you a refund you will apply for a lien on the property which may make it harder to sell. This does not really work for your situation in practice but it may cause them to pay what they owe you.

As others have said the villas on this site are verified every six months and any owner that treated a guest in this manner would be thrown off the site. This does not help you but please do not be put off Florida by this one heart less owner. Please let us know how you get on as we may be able to offer more practical advice.

Dave

[Tony G]

Some great advice in this thread.

I'm disgusted by the attitude of the villa owner in the original post.

[brownm]

I am so please that the villa owners is not related or listed on this great website!! However I am sorry to hear about your poor experience in renting a private villa. It really does pay to read up on recommendations and as already said ask as many questions as you like and I am sure the owners on this site will be more than happy to assist.

Regards,

Mark.

[David W]

I'm sorry to hear about your problems and would certainly recommend using this website for any future villa rentals you decide to make.

This year we hired a villa from an owner on this website and when we arrived (late April and temperatures in the mid to upper 80's) the Air Con was stuck on "Heat", so you can imagine the shock when we entered the villa. It was early evening and although I thought about contacting the UK owner, I decided as it was late in the UK I would try the management company first. On calling the management company I got a recorded message saying out of office hours and gave a cell phone number to call in case of emergencies. My first thoughts were is this an emergency and decided yes, so I called the number. This went to a recorded message saying leave a message and they would get back to me. Being a bit of a cynic I thought this will be a waste of time and we will hear no more, but I left a message anyway explaining the problem. To get out of the heat we decided to got to the local Publix to get some supplies. While in the Publix I received a text from the management company saying they were trying to call me. When we got back to the villa I called the number again and spoke to a very helpful and sympathetic lady who said she would call me back. Literally 2 minutes later she called saying she had arranged for an Air Con engineer to visit and he was finishing another job, but would be with us within half an hour. He was and after another 30 minutes work, now 8:30pm, he had fixed the problem - what a relief to feel the cold air!!

The next day I spoke to villa owner and he said we could have called him even though it was late in the UK. He now informs me he has changed the controller so he can adjust the temperature remotely via the internet should any future guests have problems setting the temperature. Overall I had excellent service from both the villa owner and the management company.