Hayden Real Estate - Torquay

Do not rent through Hayden Real Estate. Our experience was incredibly stressful and deeply disappointing. We tried to resolve things fairly and respectfully, but were met with poor communication, deflection, and serious mismanagement by their senior property manager. Here’s a summary of what we endured: Our upstairs air conditioning was broken for nearly 5 months. When we followed up, the response from the senior property manager was, “the property has other air conditioning units” — completely ignoring the fact that we were living without essential climate control. We were also asked to follow up the tradesman ourselves. A major roof leak and black mould was reported in June. It rendered our master bedroom and ensuite unusable for over a month. Their advice? “Just close the room off.” Not only unacceptable, but dangerous. The mould was disgusting and had a real impact on our health — both my partner and I became unwell. The only action taken was sending a carpet cleaner, not a qualified mould specialist. The landlord refused to engage a professional and instead sent a friend (a tradesperson) who could only attend on Saturdays, further delaying any resolution. Additionally, when the work was completed, it was not done to a professional standard. There were still visible holes in the roof, and the air conditioner has gaps with exposed wiring. No further work has been booked or carried out to resolve these issues We were asked to follow up trades ourselves, and when we raised serious concerns, we were told, “I deal in facts” and “if you’re not happy, contact Consumer Affairs.” When we requested a rent reduction due to the unlivable conditions, it was dismissed. We were offered compensation in the end however it was inadequate so we had to break lease and find a new place to live. Upon vacating, we were told we’d need to pay for flea treatment, despite the fact we never agreed to this and it wasn’t in our lease. The property had been used as an Airbnb prior to our tenancy — which explained a lot in hindsight. What made it worse was the attitude. We asked three times for our concerns to be escalated to a director — and when they finally were, we were told: “We’ve never had a complaint about her before.” That dismissive attitude said it all. We genuinely wanted to stay and were more than willing to cooperate, but were met with resistance and indifference at every step. The property was unsafe, and we were treated like we were the problem for speaking up. If you’re a tenant: avoid this agency. If you’re a landlord: think carefully before entrusting them with your property. We’re finally recovering — physically and mentally — after leaving.

Kieran CollinsGoogle

Unfortunately a negative experience from start to finish of my lease with Hayden’s torquay. House was putrid when we moved in and was several months of back and forth to get issues rectified. When vacating the property, these same issues that were never fixed were then blamed on us without consultation of the condition report. Avoid unless absolutely necessary.

Danny TGoogle

After being a tenant with Hayden for the last 4 years I'm really disappointed in the service we received. A few of the issues we dealt with during our tenancy were: 1. Maintenance requests being ignored. On 11 April 2022, I raised a maintenance issue with our property manager. Despite several emails and phone calls following it up over the course of 9 months, I was met with limited assistance. Upon vacating the property in January 2023, the maintenance issue had yet to be resolved. 2. Lack of communication. The lack of communication both to tenants as well as within Hayden Real Estate Torquay is alarming. On numerous occasions, we contacted the office to speak to our property manager about various things during our tenancy, and never once were our phone calls returned despite being told that the message would be passed along. Additionally, whenever the property manager changed (which was several times for us) we were never informed, so when I did need to speak to the necessary person I didn’t know who I was meant to be contacting. 3. Arrears issues. This is a really important one to note for anyone currently renting or considering renting through Hayden as it may affect future applications with other agencies. Hayden’s way of processing rent is to set up a direct debit on their side and they are the ones to organise when the money will be debited. For example, our due date for rent was the 3rd of every month, they would process it on the 3rd, which occasionally would fall on a weekend, so was, therefore, not processed until a few days later. As a result of Hayden operating this way, it red-flagged us with other rental agencies for having arrears. When I contacted our property manager at Hayden to discuss the issue and request a letter explaining that we were never late on rent, she was less than helpful making it feel as though what I was asking was a massive hassle for her despite it impacting us greatly. She said that she would do the letter either that afternoon or the next morning, of course, it wasn’t done and I had to follow up the following afternoon as it was an urgent matter for us. 4. Disorganisation. We broke our lease 6 months early, however, gave plenty of notice for this. An initial inspection for prospective tenants was arranged and when I contacted the real estate agent a few days later querying how the inspection went and if a second one would be needed so we could plan accordingly, the response I received was: Thanks for touching base the open went well. I am hoping I will not have to hold another inspection as there are some applicants which I will process today. Despite this response, it was to our surprise when packing one day that an additional inspection was held for prospective tenants, in which we were not made aware of despite the Victorian Consumer Affairs stating that agents must give written notice within a certain time frame to hold inspections. This ties in with my point about the lack of communication within the office. We had called 2 days beforehand to speak to the relevant staff member and were told that she was not returning from holidays until the next day and our message would be passed along and they’d get her to call us. We were never contacted, yet had we been she could have given us the necessary notice. I was also informed that the applications that were meant to be processed 2 weeks prior had not been “because her boss sent her on holiday”. Consequently, this severally delayed the process of finding a new tenant. These are only a handful of the issues we experienced during our tenancy, each which I feel was met with what I can only describe as rudeness. In my opinion, it feels as though there is a massive lack of care towards their tenants, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this is extended to their staff as well due to the high staff turnover - which speaks volumes in itself.

Cartier Finniss-HughesGoogle