You're better off homeless... Seriously
When it all started
Want to hear about the most horrific rental experience in my entire life? Well, grab your popcorn, kiddies, because this is going to be a doozy…
In all my years living in NYC, you would think I would have some horror story, but it wasn’t until I came to Paris that I experienced TRUE HELL. Making it to the top of my list of places and businesses to avoid in Paris is Vingt Paris Real Estate Agency.
A friend recommended the agency to me as I was looking for an agency that specialized in expat rentals. He told me about the agency, but what he failed to mention was that he actually never did business with them, which would have been good to know at the get go, but I digress. Let’s take a journey through my top 5 highlights in this highway to hell.
Move in
As soon as I moved in on November 13th, 2018, things were not as they should have been. Half the appliances were not there—The fridge/freezer, the laundry machine and the exhaust for the stove, plus the internet was not working. I was told they would be there the following day and waited in my apartment, but wasn’t contacted till after 2pm that day letting me know it wouldn’t be done till end of week. Spoiler alert—the appliances did not arrive by end of week, and neither did the internet. Appliances and internet were not in place till the following week and even then, there were issues and things not completed in the apartment including tv hook up, the fridge not fitting properly and doors being left underneath the couch, which were supposed to be removed (they never removed them), and other things not being installed. This continued to over a month after move in date.
Bottom Line: They cut corners to get the apartment ready by the agreed upon move in date to keep their money vs delivering a proper and ready apartment.
The Leak
Less than a month after move in, I woke up to another surprise…
When I finally thought things were all set with the apartment, I woke up to a quarter of my bedroom ceiling falling off. The kicker regarding this is that I had alerted the agency two weeks prior that I had noticed cracks on the ceiling that I didn’t remember being there when I had moved in. Their response was that it was an old building and it was normal wear and tear. So, had they taken it seriously, maybe they could have caught this leak before it had done any damage to the apartment, but who really knows.
Before I go on, keep in mind that this was reported first week in December 2018.
I was given the run around all winter and then finally in March I was told that the quote was approved and the owner of the apartment had paid the contractor, but since the contractor was on vacation, work would not begin until April 18th. Since we all know follow up is not the greatest in France, I sent an email to follow-up in April and get an email from the owner of the agency.
I’m sorry, but if you are A RENTER and you get an email from the agency owner, you know something is up. And the subject title of “Moving tenant due to leak and humidity” did not assure me that I was safe in the apartment either. I had much email and phone correspondence with Susie, the agency owner, and she assured me that the apartment was safe, but the apartment owner was being unresponsive, so she wanted to move me to another apartment despite the fact that I told her I had correspondence from an employee in her agency saying that everything was approved by the owner. There was a point where she actually told me to withhold the entire amount of rent from the owner, which did not sit right with me so I paid my rent anyway.
When I left the apartment at the end of 2019, the ceiling was still not repaired.
The Fridge
Let’s take a break from the ceiling and move on to the fridge. I arrived back one weekend in July to discover my fridge was no longer working. It seemed strange since it was a new fridge. I alerted the agency to ask if they could send a contractor in to look at it. One of the agency employees said a contractor would be in, but a contractor never came. When I followed up to ask when a contractor would be coming, I get a reply from Susie that the owner will not respond to them about replacing the fridge and that they will need to move me to another apartment.
It was nothing short of shady that their go to response was always “let’s move you to another apartment”, so I contacted the owner directly to see why she was refusing to deal with something that affected my day to day living. Mind you, not having a working fridge during the heatwave was not only difficult, but expensive. The owner responded within 24 hours and let me know that her contractor was on vacation and should be back the following week. When Vingt followed up to see if I liked any of the apartment options they sent me, I let them know that 1-all the apartments they sent me ignored my specifications and 2-i had spoken to the owner and that she let me know that her contractor was away. That was when they finally came clean to me and let me know that they were in “arrears” with the owner. So basically their go-to tactic for getting what they wanted from the owner was taking away their revenue stream (i.e. me) vs actually being a professional company and addressing complaints and issues from a paying tenant they placed in that apartment.
The Heaters
And if you think this couldn’t get any better…Hold. My. Freaking. Beer. This may be a little out of order because the heater debacle took place simultaneously as the fridge debacle. In July I received a message from Susie that workmen would need to come in to the apartment to replace the heaters for technical reasons. I was not able to be at the apartment at the time the workmen were arriving, but the agency had keys and I had no reason to think something shady was going on. When I arrived back to the apartment I see all the heaters had been taken! I immediately contact the agency as I was told they were being replaced and they said they would get back to me. Spoiler alert: this was a lie and they took the heaters based on what was going on with the owner of the apartment. I found this out when they finally admitted being in disputes with the apartment owner.
So, they basically took the heaters under false pretenses citing “technical reasons”, which led me to believe that there was something wrong with the heaters . I honestly thought they were being recalled because that seems to happen so much in this day and age, but nope, just plain old deception.
I found out a month later that the owner of the apartment was not even informed that they were taken. So, if this was done to get the owner to take some action and amend whatever financial dispute they were having, shouldn’t she have been told that some move had been made? Because at the end of the day this action was not hurting the owner, but hurting me, the rent paying party.
There were no heaters in the apartment when I moved out at the end of November 2019.
The Lack of Humanity
Unbeknownst to me there was a leak to the downstair neighbor’s apartment. I was not informed by anyone as the neighbor contacted the agency directly, as they were supposed to be managing the apartment. I ran into my neighbor one day after the farmer’s market and she let me know about the situation. Her daughter was on the phone when I arrived and they both informed me that they had contacted the agency and their response to my neighbor was “It is not our problem”. When I asked the agency why they couldn’t send someone in as the insurance I obtained covers it there was no response. Shocker.
The only time I ever heard from the agency is when they wanted more money. They tell me not to pay the owner rent, but they have no problem requesting me to pay them an additional agency fee. Thankfully, I hired a lawyer and she told me that is “non-decent” under French Civil Code to pay any additional fees or rent since I was living in apartment that did not have an adequate heating system in place and they really couldn’t retaliate against me since it was illegal under the law—gotta love renter’s rights in France!
The agency continued to ask me for money when no efforts were made to resolve the heating issue, amongst other repairs in the apartment with their response being that they have no obligation to me and it is the owner’s responsibility. And that would be all fine and good if they were not requesting me to pay them an exorbitant agency fee for an apartment that was not even legal to collect rent from since the heaters were taken.
They even had the audacity to send me a new lease with an invoice for the annual agency fee with retroactive months. When I told them that I refused to pay them a fee for an apartment that was without heaters in the middle of November, their response was “I would like to remind you that your lease has expired on the 12th of November so you are illegally at the property without a new lease.” Not really the kind of hospitality or experience you are expecting from any service agency, is it?
AND THE BEST PART IS, they sent me a new lease for another year, plus an invoice for an another annual agency fee when THEY DON’T EVEN REPRESENT THE APARTMENT ANYMORE! The owner of the apartment told me she severed business ties with them when I asked if I should send the keys to the agency as I had to leave Paris suddenly. You don’t need to have a law degree to know renting an apartment without an agreement with the apartment owner is pretty much illegal in any country. From my experiences with them, don’t think they cared as long as they got their money. Seems to me like they are in some financial trouble or dire straits to go this far to threaten a renter that has paid her rent on time monthly.
Furthermore, neither my lawyer nor I could figure out what the agency fee is for as they were not legally responsible to me for anything that happened in the apartment according to their lawyer because the agreement is between them and the owner of the apartment. SO if this is basically the equivalent of a US broker or finder’s fee, why does it renew? No one could answer that question. And the fact that it renewed was not noted on any documents I signed, but as fine print on their website, which was sent to my lawyer and myself when we questioned what the charge was for.
Again, this is just a snippet of the whole ordeal and I am glad this saga is behind me. The reason I am writing this now is because I don’t want any other expats (or anyone) to be taken advantage of. Living in another country is hard enough, and finding an apartment you like is hard enough. You don’t need to be stressed out and traumatized like I was. The whole ordeal caused me much stress and affected my health—I ultimately had to leave Paris at the last minute to go heal and take care of myself. So if you read this far, DO NOT USE VINGT. You may as well be giving away your firstborn.