A Guide to Living in Croydon

The building is on the main road, so there is some outside noise (mainly sirens); however, this is something you get accustomed to.

No parking is available unless you pay for an underground parking permit.

The flats are designed well and have everything you need for modern living.

Please review your development:

Property management since the new agency (Criterion Hospitality) has taken over is appalling at best. Every aspect of the building has been in decline since taking over. From maintenance to cleaning, from lack of working lifts to lack of heating and hot water, in addition, the awful communication especially from the head office who seem reluctant to reply to any emails.

The building has six lifts however only two are operational. No effort has been made to fix the other lifts in over a year and still, only two are operational. There is a building issue with hot water and heating, with there being issues on four separate occasions that have lasted for multiple days in the space of fewer than six months. Criterion Hospitality seems to be opting for cheap fixes that are temporary rather than fixing the issue outright. During the outages, very little communication is provided to tenants and when it is it’s often misinformation (e.g. hot water/heating will be restored tonight but isn’t until a further few days) and often tenants have to chase to get any communication.

Building maintenance is very basic. The focus is on keeping the concierge area tidy. The building would benefit from more frequent cleaning. The exterior windows haven’t been cleaned in over two years, and emails on the matter have been ignored.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

That the property management would change agencies. Avoid Criterion Hospitality where possible.

If there is one thing you would change about your flat or property what would it be:

To have basic utilities working. Hot water and heating are unstable in this building.

Please review your development:

A really well designed and beautiful looking building. The feel and look of the place is fabulous, our apartment is a great size and layout and the roof terraces offer incredible views towards central London.

We love style of the apartments, which have a very modern feel. Great in the winter months too as we have hardly used the heating to keep warm.

The management team are fantastic and always on hand to help and sort out issues. Looking forward to being able to use more of the facilities such as the communal work space once permitted!

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

How much development is taking place around the building. It’s certainly not overly annoying but there’s a lot of development around the immediate area.

If there is one thing you would change about your flat or property what would it be:

Some of the fittings, whilst are high end and look great just aren’t. The sofas are squeaky and the bathtub in the main bathroom is pretty useless for anyone over 5’5! But these are just minor points and don’t detract away from a great building.

Please review your development:

The facilities at the property are awesome! The management team is super welcoming and friendly.
All the staff is ready for help and people seem to really enjoy living there.
The common areas seem to be very well maintained.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

We have done very thorough research before deciding to move in. So I don’t believe so far we have something to add.

If there is one thing you would change about your flat or property what would it be:

If there is one SMALL thing I would add is that our flat was not professionally cleaned as up to standard, as there were crumbs on the floor, limescale in the showerhead and sinks (toilets and kitchen) as well the dishwasher was with limescale and smelling funky (with a dishwasher cleaner tablet I got that fixed). That was some kind of small attention to detail that someone can pick. After a good scrub, I got rid of myself of the limescale in the sinks and toilet but would be nice to arrive in our new flat a bit more well cleaned.
Although, I would like to make it clear that it did not affect our opinion of how impressed and happy we are with the property management team and building.

Please review your development:

The flat is fine although not cheap. You can see it was built with cheap materials as things tend to ruin easily. None of the flats has a balcony and windows can’t really be opened except for few centimeters. It’s not well insulated making a very hot environment in summer and fairly cold in winter (with high heating bill). Management is poor, all you can do is that things don’t get broken, because if they do they will stay broken. Communal areas tend to get dirty quite easily and cleaning is not done often enough for a building of 98 flats. We had our waste areas almost completely full of abandoned furniture for almost a year and they wouldn’t do anything about it, lift is more often broken and working and finally a lot of light bulbs got broken and never replaced.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

That they are tight to evinox – bad choice! Too expensive and really bad service from them.

If there is one thing you would change about your flat or property what would it be:

Flat, add a window in the kitchen – I thought this was basic!
Building, management – too many thing are overlooked. This type of building requires full time management!