Unity Place Basingstoke, Chineham

Reviews

1. Linden Greenstreet ★☆☆☆☆

   Lived here for 6 months. Do not rent here unless absolutely necessary. Unity Place is filled with low quality flats and tiny studios, with poor ventilation, leaks and next to no insulation, promoting mold and damp. Some of the units don't even come with radiators. Yes you heard me correct, they don't even come with heating. The walls are also mostly hollow, where the landlord has tried to cram in as many units as possible into the building on a budget without proper provisions. It's a clear cash grab with a lack of consideration for quality or peoples well being, bins overflowing from too many people living in the building, fly tipping too! It's a nightmare there. This is why you will hardly see any genuine detailed photos online of the inside of the properties at unity place. I moved out as soon as I could.

   1 year ago
2. L A ★☆☆☆☆

   Edit (January 2025): I've reported Haart and the landlord for Unity Place, and my case is currently with the Property Ombudsman. I'd advice everyone to do the same. I moved into a studio flat in September 2022 through Haart and there are so many problems! - The place was still a building site and even now there's loud work going on. - The flat was handed over in a poor state: holes in the walls, plaster splattered everywhere, heavy dust, damage to bathroom drawers, deep scratches in the kitchen sink, and a front door that wouldn't lock. - The windows weren't installed correctly and have gaps round the edges allowing rain to flood in. I had to use gaffer tape to seal it closed so there was less cold air and rain getting in. - Constant visits from police, ambulance, fire brigade. - Shoutout to the crazy resident who played music from a portable speaker before proceeding to go outside and smash his car up. - Residents don't receive the required 48hrs notice when access to the flat is needed. I came home late one night to find my door had been left open after an unexpected visit. - Someone tried to break into my flat one night while I was sleeping. - Parcels are always being stolen from reception. - On 12th Jan 2023 part of the buildings exterior collapsed, so now whenever it rains outside, it also rains INSIDE from my ceiling. - Communal washing machines usually don't work or get switched off by other residents for a laugh. They're also stupidly expensive. - My neighbours extractor fan from their kitchen leads directly into my bathroom. It's disgusting. - My car has been blocked in by residents who couldn't be bothered to go find their own parking spot. - Good luck recycling. Those bins are never emptied. - Litter everywhere! - Children congregate in communal hallways and run around screaming. - The lifts keep breaking. - SO MANY VISITS! There is always a reason why someone "needs" to enter your flat, it's unbelievable. Don't move here if you rely on quietly working from home!!! - And finally the icing on the cake, the council have recently served a Housing Act 2004 Section 20 notice ordering me to leave the premises because my studio flat is "NOT SAFE FOR HABITATION". All my maintenance requests have been ignored over the last seventeen months, so I'm looking into legal action. Haart have gone radio silent, not acknowledging my emails or complaints, except to inform me my rent is going up by £130...

   1 year ago
3. Zara ★☆☆☆☆

   Terrible place to live, avoid living here at all costs. Rented two flats here which both had a plethora of problems including leaking roofs and an unbelievable amount of condensation and mould around the window area. Individuals who carried out work were nice and tried their best to help. But, were not equipped and enabled to do it. The remedial work carried out to "fix" the issues was very poor. Each time, the work had to be redone and proved time and time again not to address the issue. This meant for months living in a flat with a section of the flat simply unusable. The reception area, stairways and hallways are, at best, unhygenic with numerous occasions of broken bin bags with rubbish left scattered on the stairways. Packages being stolen from reception is a common occurance which happened to me on one occasion. The bin areas are constantly overfilling, to the point that the waste spills outside of the bins. Outside the flats you can see the extent of the mould and condensation problems around the windows. I have also, on a number of occasions, seen rats by the exits and bin area. The building was constantly a construction site. Most recently, a lot of work was carried out (instructed by the council to do so) to meet fire regulations. The cost of rent does not reflect the quality of the flat and is very overpriced.

   1 year ago

1. Cameron B ★☆☆☆☆

   The “Flats” leak, are of seriously poor quality, and over priced. Communal areas are dirty and mistreated. Letting agents did not help me. Maintenance workers are lovely guys as is the building manager, but communication and timekeeping is poor. I experienced leaking roof/window frames, damp, water bubbles in the wall and consequently mould during the near entirety of my time at unity place (in two different flats). Water ingress was not fixed for multiple months. Worst of all was a mysterious wall leak that drenched my carpet and was not fixed for two (!) months. During this period the council visited my flat and let me know that as a result of these issues among other things such as lack of ventilation my flat did not meet necessary standards. The owner was required by the council to fix the issues. Following this workers would show up at random intervals to implement the remedial measures. Frequently I would ask for times and dates this work would be done. Any agreed upon time was ignored/forgotten and they would instead show up late or in many cases not at all. I would then have to restart the process to rearrange another time. On other occasions attempts to enter the flat would be made with less than 24 hours notice, though usually none at all despite me explicitly denying consent to do so. The council also identified the building was lacking in necessary fire safety precautions and required fire marshalls to patrol the flat as a temporary solution (this went on for months). Again attempts to rectify this would require workers to enter the flat. I was given a three week window in which this work would be done despite it only taking around an hour total. The car park situation is dire, with various areas being used as a junk yard, car batteries and smashed glass are commonly left lying around. The car park is also at capacity and people will park wherever they can including on the pavements blocking access if you have any mobility issues. My car was scratched on multiple occasions.The bins frequently overflowing and there are rats. Construction work seems continuous and as walls are thin you will experience vibrations during the daytime and neighbours TV/talking during the evening. The smell of neighbours cooking also got into the flat every evening. This was not coming in via the hallway as it seemed localised to the bedroom/bathroom. I was also being pressured into paying for a tenants liability insurance by the lettings agent even though I have my own insurance that covers this. This was not mentioned as a requirement in the contract and as such I got around needing this. Throughout all of this the lettings agent, Haart was generally unhelpful. They ignored my calls/emails more than 50% of the time and when they did, they would selectively only answer 1 of perhaps 5 requests made in said communications. They were however extremely prompt in getting in touch to raise rent by 10% as I neared the end of my contract. When you report an issue to the lettings agents they must pass it to the landlord who passes it to the building manager who passes it to the maintenance/construction team. This means if you are lucky enough to have an issue logged, by the time someone comes to visit they will not be briefed on the issue and you will have to explain it again. At which point they will likely have to go to fetch necessary tools and then may or may not return. Haart also claimed we had not returned our keys. We had fortunately recorded a video handing the keys to the agent, we did this as we anticipated incompetence after which they accepted that we had returned them. See pictures

   1 year ago
2. Thomas ★☆☆☆☆

   Terrible! This is a perfect example of the atrocious private rental accommodation market in this country. The rooms / 'flats' are of very poor quality generally; small, cramped, poorly finished, appliances break, etc. The agent does not respond to messages. The communal laundry is extortionately expensive, machines are worn out and do not function properly, if at all. The car park is too small and hazardous. There is a junkyard in part of the car park. The entire area is infested with rats. Corridors reek of drugs and there is litter everywhere. There are major fire safety breaches currently being investigated by the authorities. Insufficient notice to enter the property is given when the landlord needs to carry out remedial work, which is frequent. The police are very often parked outside due to a variety of issues. Lots of additional charges when you move in and particularly when you move out, this is something which I believe to be highly unfair if not illegal and would urge anyone who is experiencing this to look into further as this is the most egregious of all the problems. In short, avoid this dump at all costs unless you like having your wallet emptied on a regular basis and enjoy living in a slum.

   almost 2 years ago
3. Omolade Aminat ★★★★☆

   Very serene environment with great security. It's affordable and easy to access.

   almost 3 years ago

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