We paid in full 7 months in advance, signing a 4 page leasing contract through property management company Veeve. Got a phone call 5 days before our week long rental was to start, informing us the owner needed to stay in their London appartment for personal reasons so our rental was cancelled. I was not happy, but asked what they had for us instead. They said they would send me some choices the next day.
Two days later ( 3 days before we are to arrive in London) I receive an email of three choices. None are air conditioned (a high priority for why we booked the first apartment) and they are definitely lower in quality. Only 2 bedrooms each ( we had rented a 3 bedroom.) When they called to follow up, I said none had air conditioning, which was a requirement for us. They explained that with such late notice, and how London is so crowded with the World Cup, Hyde Park Concert series, and Wimbledon, it was difficult to get anything at all in London. But they would happily refund our full payment.
They offered to put one portable air conditioning unit in one bedroom, and a fan in the other. Didn’t have a 3 bedroom unit available.
It was a nightmare. Four women coming to London to celebrate a 60th birthday, wanting a lovely 3 bedroom apartment so we could spend evenings together in the living room chatting.
After looking for hours and hours for an apartment, I settled on a hotel. I emailed Veeve, explained this was costing us much more than our original plan, because I was booking the hotel the day before arrival. After emailing several more times, I finally got a refund of our money paid to them, but nothing to compensate for our additional expenditure, a couple thousand dollars more.
How possibly could this owner, and this rental property management company, have cancelled our fully paid apartment on 5 days notice, and not provided us with a comparable substitute. We had to spend double the money for lesser hotel rooms, and had no living room or kitchen...
Be forewarned with this owner and this rental management company.