Booked house through Owners Direct - problems with house had to leave

Hi,

I booked a house in West of Ireland through Owners Direct. We had our two children and a very elderly parent, arrived down last Saturday, there was a terrible stale smell of damp and stale water in the house, fridge was not clean and oven was filthy, grill pan full of grease - I had to clean after a 6 hour drive. That wasn't so bad until I had a bath that evening when I pulled the plug some debris came up from plug hole, thought it was strange. Two or three hours later the water still had not gone done in bath, my husband plunged the plug hole, sewage came up through sink, toilet and bath and there were water marks coming through the ceiling downstairs. We texted owners to say we would be leaving the following morning, they said they'd return the deposit but no apology. I had to try and find a holiday home suitable for all of us which eventually I did, we had to repack food, cloths everything and relocate. The owners did not contact us until Monday evening and the attitude was that it was only a minor problem we could have used the bathroom downstairs and that they were at the loss of their week's rental, I was dumb founded - he was implying that we did the damage. The mattresses were also so poor that you could feel the springs cutting in to your back. So far I have not received my deposit back. I have contacted Owners Direct website but they don't post reviews which is a bit strange but I have let them know. Other than this I do not know what redress I have, a full day of our holiday was destroyed due to this and I would like to get my deposit back.

Angela59

How did you pay the deposit ?

By Cheque about 3 months ago and it has been cashed.

Angela59

Just to update, the owner of the property refunded my money today and also apologised for the inconvenience. So that puts an end to the matter. With Owners Direct website there are no reviews of properties which is very disappointing they said they may do this sometime in the future.

Angela59

Owner's Direct seem like a sloppy operation.

Do they not "vet" each house for condition?

ONQ.

onq said:

Owner's Direct seem like a sloppy operation.

Do they not "vet" each house for condition?

ONQ.

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Yes onq, I agree it was my first time to use them and until something like this goes wrong you realise they don't care, I contacted them and they passed on my comments to the owner but Owners Direct made it clear they do not get involved. No they don't check out houses they merely advertise, paper doesn't refuse ink, owners can say what they want about their houses, at least if you could post reviews people can make up their own mind.

Angela59

angela, you could post a review of the house on Tripadvisor, I personally never book anything now without reading reviews, which I do take some reviews with a grain of salt but if many of the same, especially poor service/staff/management, i simply choose elsewhere.

Agree with Sandals.

However surely the clue to the operation is in the Title Owners Direct, to my mind it's obvious that they're just a website for owners to market directly to the public rather than setting up their own website. It would never occur to me that they had carried out any checks on the properties or would be liable in any shape or form for any problems.

We've booked via Owners Direct on many occasions - never had a problem - you speak/mail with the owner of the property that you're interested in and haggle it out and discuss exactly what you're getting for what you're paying - I've always asked for pictures and local info from the owner - that way you can get a vibe for them and see if its for you or not.
We've had some super places through them - will be using them again in Feb next year for the snow.
My advice would be have as much contact with the owner as you can before booking and use your intuition.

elefantfresh said:

We've booked via Owners Direct on many occasions - never had a problem - you speak/mail with the owner of the property that you're interested in and haggle it out and discuss exactly what you're getting for what you're paying - I've always asked for pictures and local info from the owner - that way you can get a vibe for them and see if its for you or not.
We've had some super places through them - will be using them again in Feb next year for the snow.
My advice would be have as much contact with the owner as you can before booking and use your intuition.

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Very hard to judge from photos that there is a sewage problem, or that the fridge or oven has not been cleaned or that the matteress are so cheap that you can hardly sleep on them. Reveiws are the only way to go in my opinion. In the past that's what I go on, first and last time using Owners Direct.

Angela59