After terrible experiences at James Gibb our Estate recently had Mark Powell appointed as the Development Manager. He is certainly proactive and is currently working on bringing the development back to a standard with which the owners of the properties should have become accustomed to many years ago. It is a refreshing change and hopefully a sign of good things to come.

A terrible company: 1. Increased (already ridiculously high) charges without telling us, giving us a big bill at the end of the year and threateningly demanding immediate payment. 2. Zero communication with us when we were trying to sell our flat. We only got our 'final bill' 3 months after selling despite many attempts to contact them ourselves. Then they had the audacity to charge us a late notification fee. (Honestly, we should have the right to send them a bill for their slow administration, I mean what exactly are we paying these extortionate prices for?!). 3. Our flat had a cladding issue and we only found out about this upon trying to sell. It is the factors duty to report this problem to all homeowners and we should have been notified about this issue well before selling. We know people with other factors who had been well notified by their factors of the problem. 4. Refused to do anything other than sending an email about the dangerous situation we had with bikes blocking the communal hallways. Of course, their email did not fix the problem and we were told they couldn't do anything else about the situation. The customer service given is rude, ignorant and arrogant. We did not have one nice conversation with anyone the full time we were with James Gibb. They seem to hire horrible people deliberately. We all know factors are generally over-priced and love to take advantage of their clients, James Gibb Factors go over and above to do both of the above. Feel sorry for anyone trapped into business with James Gibb. If you can get out and move to another factor we really recommend you do.

Great service from Martin Murphy. Issues dealt with in an efficient & very helpful manner. E-mails replied to instantly. Couldn’t really ask for more, thanks again for all your help.....

I have had the experience of having 2 family members living in developments managed by James Gibb. In the first, the property manager changed multiple times in 2-3 years, with no notification of any of the changes to the residents. This was then given as the main reason why much needed, and much delayed, “refresh” work on the external facade of the property and to the common stairwells was delayed. The current property manager does appear to making a difference and these works have finally progressed. In the 2nd development I recently learnt that the property manager was no longer working on that development, after a month’s long silence on what was an ongoing email dialogue, including sending “chase-up” emails. So communication and continuity aren’t the best. Raising repairs and new work requests via the property manager has been actioned pretty quickly so the respective property managers are to be complemented. Unfortunately, raising similar via the James Gibb online system has not been nearly as successful. Gardening/Site Inspections: Experience on both developments is similar. The presumption is that gardeners appear on a regular basis, but you don’t know unless you seen them. No upfront notification of their visit is given. This means that they repeatedly can’t reach specific areas (e.g. parked cars preventing access for pruning and moss and leaf cleaning). A recent innovation at one of the developments of providing a gardening report, including photos after each visit is a positive step forward, but the report currently doesn’t bear scrutiny: the report narrative is essentially the same each time, however the time spent varies from 20 minutes to 4+ hours. Only the photos give a real clue as to what activities have been carried out. Early days for this report and we’ve provided feedback and hope to see it improve shortly. It’s also unclear whether the property managers have real ownership of ensuring the gardening work is performed as per the contract. I believe that’s clearly part of their role. E.g. in both developments, there is extensive moss on certain areas of paving stones / entrance road / pavement which has not been treated and is not being addressed - for one of the developments the time left untreated is over 6 years. Additionally, in one development, junk (bike frame, traffic bollards and a used hypodermic syringe) have been left untouched for many, many months (before and during Covid) – clearly not being seen in the site inspections nor by the gardeners. Internal cleaning: Carried out effectively. Billing: James Gibb is the first factor I’ve dealt with who does not make automatically make their contractors’ invoices available for review, so your individual bill has to be taken “on trust”. One-off Items appear with no explanation. Little or no attempt appears to be made to identify any owner causing one-off costs (eg uplifting bath someone left beside the bin store), nor does any communication relating to such events come from James Gibb, to highlight these cost incurring behaviours. A regular property specific email would be a great innovation. So, overall I’d say James Gibb can, and needs, to do better. Much depends on who the property manager is, and how active the residents’ committee / residents are in monitoring performance. Also, some of James Gibb’s processes are clearly designed principally for James Gibb benefit, but consume excessive residents’ time and are not customer friendly. “Walk a mile in my shoes”

This is a terrible organisation which provides the bare minimum of service, regularly displays incompetence, lacks professionalism and charges prohibitively high costs.

Very poor company in my experience. I sold a flat that was managed by them in March 2020, it took until Sept to refund my deposit (less final bills that were due), then in Dec 2020 sent me another bill for £12 for cleaning done in October 2019. Would avoid this company if possible.

Jackie has been extremely helpful and efficient; seeing to jobs previous property managers were not dealing with.

Enquired about building insurance included in factoring costs. Lindsey was very helpful and friendly and sent a copy of policy details by e-mail in a matter of minutes! Really impressed.

Disgusting company that couldn't care less about their developments or clients. Avoid at all costs. Sold my flat in August 2020 and still waiting on a complaint being resolved and my credit balance is still not refunded. Development managers change every 5 mins, notes are not left correctly on your account. Make sure u email as at least you have proof of what you and they said!!

horrible customer service, property managers seem very overworked. have had 6 managers in1 year

This company is awful verging on potentially criminal. Massively inflated charges for work that is poorly done. Presumably get a kick back from the companies they contract with

Still no reply for Gibbs only an invoice asking for money as per usual. Agree with the earlier feedback written do not believe anyone would give 5 star review to anyone employed or connected to these crooks.

Recently taken on the factoring of a new Cala development in Aberdeen. Invoice received was a final demand when no initial invoice was received by myself or other residents. Initial invoice arrived a week after the final demand. I queried my invoice as we’d already paid the float to LPM on purchase and billed for items on the invoice such as a play park which don’t exist. While invoice under query I got a final demand with a £30 penalty, it’s taken 3 months of chasing for them to agree the £30 will be removed from my account and this apparently will not be on my next invoice.......time will tell but I’m unimpressed.

During 2020, Mark Powell, Senior Development Manager at James Gibb (factors for Dalmarnock Drive, Glasgow), has been helpful in responding to my emails. This has helped to report on repairs, litter, etc, making life better for residents and easier for Mark. I recommend Mark to anyone dealing with such matters and wish him the best in his future roles.

Does anyone know how to get rid of these con men? They do absolutely nothing in the estate I live in and their staff should take a course on how to interact with human beings especially a man called Steven!!! We had been withholding payments as they do not do anything and then with a global pandemic hitting it doesn’t sit right with me to pay them for nothing when it can’t be justified. Then after wages were arrested on Christmas Eve when calling to resolve the matter I was told by Steven that It was all brought on myself and no further assistance was provided. Merely expressing anxieties and worries (after a period of poor mental health) of money especially during these uncertain times I was then handled in an aggressive, unprofessional manner by your employee and no issues were resolved I have since then tried to contact your firm but the phones have rang out. Customer service is a complete shambles ( not all staff just in particular the man I had the misfortune of dealing with). My James Gibb number is: 307031271

Not to sure what I am paying these people for, thinking about selling my property as a result of receiving constant bills from then for things that I am unaware have even been done!

Receiving random bills for electrical charges for the past year (I’ve only lived in the property for 2 months), took them nearly 3 months to send out a welcome pack which is supposed to be received within two weeks of entry (received keys in September), have sent emails which have been ignored totally or have taken up to 1 week to receive a reply, informed them of a leak coming from above my property, most likely between floors and was told it wasn’t their problem. This is all within the space of 2 months.

I have had a few communications with James Gibb and they have all been responded too quickly and effectively. Continents drifted faster compared to our previous factors responses and so far, James Gibb have been really good. Hope it continues this way.

I live in a development that is factored by James Gibb (Pilrig Heights) There are ongoing problems with billing and James Gibb has not been proactive or helpful when it comes to resolution of the queries. Looks like we need to do reconciliations of bills ourselves and run accounting for them! No one at James Gibb bothered checking our electricity bills and happily accepted £6k charge for one block while the others pay £1k for corresponding period. Negligence? Very disappointed...

As you can see from other posts. I live in Pilrig Heights and we can’t trust this organisation as they keep trying to deceive their customers. From pension contributions to electricity charges over a year old. Do not trust this company.