Mainstay Group Avis 

Living at my property managed by mainstay for 2 years now. They fail to respond to simple questions via email and take weeks to resolve issues or even ignore your issues you have raised half the time.

Then when the time comes to pay service charge and other bills they hit you with their complex billing methods not explaining exactly what they are charging for under multiple account appearing to be charging for the same thing. The lack of responses results in customers facing late arrear charges.

An classic example of an issue with mainstay is that I have raised that electric car charging points around my property has not been activated since they have been installed when I moved in. This has been emailed to the mainstay group and property manager several times to only receive the standard response of 'we are checking with the property manager' which we never once heard from yet.

If I could give zero stars I would. Despite selling the property (which I hasten to add was in part owing to Mainstays blatant rip off fees & charges). One year on, I’m still getting bills & demands. I have contacted & emailed to request they update records but all has been an entire waste of oxygen.
It’s not as though they don’t actually know the property has changed hands. Part of the process they insist on is a solicitor’s pack and reassignment documentation all at an unreasonable cost of course.

It’s a wonder they’re still in business, maybe it’s the poor souls like myself who continue to pay through the nose for the seemingly incompetent financial mismanagement and inefficiencies.

All I want is my name off their records & not to receive bills from them. That’s clearly too difficult. No where else to turn.

Very poor service and appalling budget management. Mainstay have managed a development where I own a property for the last 6 years and I would never buy a property managed by them again. They are un-responsie and can't manage a budget (sevice charge has increased almost 60% in 5 years). Avoid!!!

Dealing with these people makes me feel sick, I am now looking at selling my place because I don't want to deal with mainstay anymore they are clowns!

I'm a Leaseholder Director at a property in West London, managed by FirstPort.

There's been a lot of bad stuff but today's is award winning. Brace yourself.

For three years our agent has been raising cladding issues on behalf of Leaseholders to the freeholder at our property, but always says "they're difficult to get hold off".

After thinking something was up, and doing it myself, I was immediately informed they sold the freehold to a third party in 2019.

For three years, our manager has been writing letters and calling the wrong company. We would have better luck writing to Father Christmas. I've seen him as many times as our manager.

Well done Mainstay. You still find ways to impress me.

Bravo.

Shocking service! I've been trying to get a Deed of Variation to sell my property. Looks like the sale will now fall through because Mainstay have not actioned the request made 6 weeks ago!

Absolutely terrible customer service. I have been trying to get answers to questions relating to unexpected hikes in service charges since the first week of January 2022. It is now 25 Feb 2022 and my questions are not answered. I have had to chase countless times, and the only response i have managed to get so far has not answered any of my direct questions .. my chasing continues.

A truly awful s**t show of a company. It would be easier to contact my dead relatives.
I echo the comments regarding the resales team. Do they exist?
I have been trying to obtain easily available information from them for months. Even the housing association of my shared ownership can not get a response from them.
You've got better odds of Boris telling the truth rather than a response from them.

Just a horrible company to deal with - cold, mocking, no humanity and all done with an air of smug aloofness arising from hiding behind a veneer that what they do is legal. That may be so but I would not able to sleep at night if this were my company knowing how poorly they treat people who have no choice but to use Mainstay.

Mainstay took over our property and developments ground maintenance in Jan 2021 and have already been fired by the residents association for the ground maintenance but unfortunately we have been forced to keep them as a building management (for now).
Our property manager refuses to answer emails, calls, or any communication for months I've had to get the developers involved to just get a response. They use the worst companies for the works and they inflate the charges and then overcharge for the works on the service charge with no roll over funds the extra money just disappears. (as an example they charge us £400 for communal water but the official invoice from Affinity water was only for £45. How is it possible to charge almost 1000% increase for a service then not make any adjustments for the 2nd years budget they charged us another £400 for year 2) I could go on and on of poor practices this company holds so dear. I know at least 5 residence that have moved properties with MAINSTAY being a large contributor to why they left.

If you are thinking of using this company please think twice and really consider how you want your property managed. If they are your management company then I'm sure you know what I am referring to.

Absolutely shocking company, I’ve been trying to move out of my flat since last August and haven’t been able to obtain the correct documents from them for the solicitors. No one in the resales team has a phone to actually speak to a person, and the customer services team have no clue what’s going on. Emails to resales go unanswered and there is no one else you can speak to. If I could give them minus stars I would. We are about to lose our mortgage offer and possible our onward purchase because of this company’s incompetence (and that of Orbit homes)

Resales team is non-existent! I have been waiting a year to sell my flat because the management company will not respond to queries.

Ive submitted 2 stages of complaints and now i am sending on my complaints to be i investigated by the property ombudsman -this is disgusting service and is impacting heavily on peoples lives.

This company needs to be held accountable for the issues they are causing.

It's a reflection of how messed up the whole property business is in the UK that Mainstay are still trading. They don't deserve to be. Impossible to get hold of anyone and almost as impossible to get any kind of service when you do. Avoid if you can, and if you have no choice then I feel your pain.

I signed a lease agreement for a flat with Mainstay in early December 2021. Prior to signing I made it very clear that when my partner rejoined me in the UK that she would need to be added to the tenancy agreement immediately so that she could live at the same residence and for proof of address for future visa purposes. Mainstay and Jemma were reminded of this multiple times yet when it was brought up in December Jemma just said "your partner should not live at the flat until she is on the lease agreement" and asked for documents without specifying which documents exactly. After sending through right to residency and other such documents we were immediately sent back an "away for holiday" email. Jemma has had the documents necessary (employment and immigration paperwork) since 8th January 2022 but still has not contacted either of us back (as of today's date 01/02/22).
Whenever you call the office whoever answers always says that she is in a meeting or that she will call back and she NEVER EVER does. If this causes an issue down the line with the Home Office we will be sure to show them the paper trail showing the negligence on the behalf of Mainstay in helping to obtain the necessary paperwork to show my partner and I living together.

Both myself and our Solicitor have tried to obtain specific confirmation from Mainstay Resales team for several months now and despite raising escalations to their ‘managers, they seem incapable of responding to straightforward questions, which nevertheless require confirmation eg have all actions for their current fire safety report been completed and position re. cladding. As a consequence, 2 questions they have failed to respond on for several months, have managed to delay the sale of our property. Poor service Mainstay, sort your act out, as if we delayed on paying our service charges, you would find the time to send a menacing demand letter.

Reading all the reviews i totally sympathies and understand everyone’s frustration with this company. They are inept sharks. Ever lasting of costs going up. Poor customer service and no word response from the Propety manger. I’ve requested a door closure to be installed on the main door to the building because of the door constantly bouncing open all the time shaking the building and leading it to remain open 99% of them. This leading to constant intruders just walking in whenever they want. Security breach. I’ve been chasing this up since November 2021!!
Am I asking for too much? Bills get paid on time all the time and I hear nothing from them. This breach is purely on mainstay for not honouring there end of the agreement.

The Service charge for Bathing place Court in Witney nearly Doubled in 2021 due to unforseen issues like roof repairs, external and internal decorations, I was assured that in 2022 the service charge would be reduced, I have a bill now for 2022 that is the same as last year with no explanation as to why its so much? I will be making a complaint to the Property Ombudsman! - edit: to be fair to mainstay, they did email me back and it seems they made a mistake in the figures and will re-issue bill, lucky i remembered the situation from last year !

If I could give zero stars I would.
This company is appalling
I was completing a remortgage and due to a maintenance charge On my freehold property my solicitor had to gain permission
We sent multiple requests
I spent numerous hours on hold chasing
I then made 2 complaints via email they were escalated to stage 2 and acknowledged then never responded.
In the end my solicitor completed without their consent as they were so appalling and I am still awaiting a resolution to my complaint but yet still need to pay my yearly maintenance charge for this year.

Terrible Customer Service. Informed them that a family member had passed away in April 21 and they continued to send her bills and threats of further action. Tried to contact them on several occasions to discuss the account but no one gets back to me. Avoid this company at all costs.

Impossible to get a hold of the resales team by either phone or email. Called on several occasions only to be on hold for more than an hour. The automated message says they are busy due to the reduction of UK government stamp duty however this isnt true as that scheme ended October 2021. Emails to resales go unanswered (not even an auto response with an indication of timeframe for replying) and this is jeopardising the sale of our flat as our neiether us or our solicitor can get a response. Very disappointing after good five years of living on a Mainstay managed estate. Making a stressful process even more stressful