Only a privileged few are lucky enough to call Central London home. This is one of the most famous cities in the world, so naturally, living in its heart doesn’t come cheap. With house prices falling largely into the multi-million pound bracket, residents here tend to be politicians, celebrities and those born into ready-made fortunes. Read on to discover the developments that are rated as the best places to live in Central London. In addition, read reviews from residents who own or rent in Central London.
Rude staff, unreliable facilities, and overpriced… the one place in Pimlico to avoid!
Pimlico is a lovely quiet area with good shops and transport links.
Please review your development:
If you are considering living in Pimlico, do not live in Dolphin Square.
It is incredibly overpriced, and facilities frequently break down. I lost hot (and sometimes cold) water and/or heating on a number of days last year, often in winter. There has been a concerning dripping sound in the pipes in the wall of my bedroom for months; it keeps me awake at night, but, despite several requests, they are yet to send a maintenance person to come and look into it.
The lift in my building has been broken for six months, and they claim it will take another three months to fix. I only found this out after chasing them by email for weeks for status updates. It simply does not take this long to fix a lift. There are almost never any engineers in the lift shaft, so I don’t know what they are doing.
Staff are rude—one told me to go away when I complained about bad smells from the floor below, and claimed I was a timewaster. The lettings team will lie to you outright: they deliberately misrepresented their position when we asked for a small reduction in our rent due to the pandemic, claiming all the flats were full and that they had a long waiting list, so I would be evicted (yes, they said evicted) if I did not agree to an enormous rent increase by the end of the week. Needless to say, I have subsequently found out that this is not true, and they have hundreds of empty flats, probably because of the reasons I have outlined in this review.
On top of that, it is worth noting that management are heartless bullies: I asked to end my lease a few months early because I couldn’t bear the constant loss of hot water, the nonstop dripping, or the strange smells that would often linger for days… and, instead of agreeing to discuss this possibility with me, I instead received a cease and desist letter from the solicitors that represent Dolphin Square. I long suspected none of them ever really cared about customer service, given how hard it is to get through to them (even pre-covid), but was not expecting to be bulldozed by a lawyer when I brought up legitimate complaints and politely enquired if it might be possible to leave a few months early after having been a paying tenant for nearly five years.
So, in short, it’s not worth the money, or the hassle. It sounds attractive, and the website makes it look idyllic, but I can promise you, as someone who has lived there for nearly some time now, it is truly dreadful.
Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:
I wish I had known how bad the facilities were, or how nasty the staff can be. It’s just not a pleasant experience living here. There are plenty of lovely places to live in and around Pimlico for less money, and probably with landlords who actually care about you. Please avoid this place and go to one of them instead!
How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:
All the complaints I have raised have been ignored, even after multiple follow-ups.
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Facilities
3
Design
3
Location
1
Value
1
Management
