AVOID - repeated unannounced entries, damage to tenants' property, and now licence-to-occupy contracts
I rented with Built Asset Management (BAM) for a few years and am writing this as a warning to anyone considering renting with them. I have reported their practices to Trading Standards and the Property Redress Scheme.
1. Repeated unannounced visits. BAM and their contractors let themselves into the house whenever they want, without ringing the bell. We complained and flagged this every single time. It continued regardless.
2. On one occasion, someone entered the house and we couldn't work out who. We asked BAM directly - they denied any visit or knowledge of one. The following week the house was broken into. When we told BAM we needed the locks changed, they then admitted the earlier 'unknown' visit had in fact been them all along.
3. During their most recent 'inspection', with no consultation: they broke our oven (leaving the house without one), broke the letterbox, displaced the garden brickwork, and removed the wildflowers I had spent months growing. We gave no permission for any of this. When their contractors damage things, BAM refuse to pass on contractor details or pay proper compensation.
4. They stripped out the entire bathroom with zero notice and left us without a shower for a month. Compensation offered: £47.
5. Cowboy contractors. One replaced all the doors and left wood shavings through the house, including in two tenants' beds and clothes, damaged our light (never replaced), and sprayed fire-proofing in the basement leaving a film of white residue over our possessions.
6. Chaotic management. We receive an enormous volume of emails - people announced who never turn up, 'repairs' for things that aren't broken - so it's impossible to know which notices are real. Every year we're pressured about 'cutting the grass' in a garden with no grass, with the threat that a gardener will attend and we'll be charged £50/hour if he thinks it needs tidying. No inspection first, just the threat.
7. Most concerning for future tenants: new housemates are now required to sign licence-to-occupy agreements instead of assured shorthold tenancies, just as the Renters' Rights Act comes into force. A licence gives you no exclusive possession of your own room and purports to let BAM enter at any time. It looks to me like an attempt to sidestep the legal protections tenants would otherwise have. Ask a housing adviser before signing anything like this.
If you're a current tenant: document everything, and know that Shelter, your council's private housing team, and the Property Redress Scheme all exist for exactly this. If you're considering renting with BAM: please read the reviews here first. I wish I had.








