Tanit

Feb 10, 2025

Significant improvements required

I have lived in a block looked after by Crabtree for 12 years. Crabtree are fully aware that hard working, honest residents have saved and subsequently spent life savings on flats that are often not safe or built for purpose, with significant defects present from build. In increasingly difficult and challenging times, Crabtree directors and management have failed to actively support individual residents in addressing ongoing issues, shirking even the most basic maintenance responsibilities and this neglect has often resulted in small issues becoming significantly more complex and costly for residents, where preventative measures could have been put in place much earlier on. Despite these failings, Crabtree unashamedly continue to increase service charges regularly despite the development being in a state of disrepair. Where no action is taken by Crabtree, service charges are consistently used incorrectly to address original building defects that original developers should be being held accountable instead of being used correctly to effectively maintain the development. When attempting to resolve issues, property managers in previous years have been significantly challenging and unpleasant to deal with often adding additional unnecessary stress in often challenging circumstances that residents have found themselves in. There is an embedded culture of a lack of care, empathy and regard for residents and general disinterest. The only positive is that more recently there has been a significant improvement in the quality of Property and Site Managers. The new site manager, Ardeep Birk is incredible and exactly what Crabtree Property should aspire to stand for with their residents. He is in possession of the morals and values that Crabtree desperately need to acquire - they can learn a lot from him. He is 100% committed and dedicated to the residents of the Pulse development and regularly goes above and beyond for them and for this reason, is held in high esteem. Ardeep has a personable manner and is always approachable, kind and helpful. He really cares about the residents as individuals and always actions any concerns raised in a timely manner so that residents feel fully supported and reassured. He really wants to make a change and a difference and tries to embed this everyday in the work that he does for Crabtree on site despite the ongoing challenges that he faces daily. Damian has also been a more recent positive addition to the team. I am hoping that this new team will push for Crabtree Directors to begin to hold those responsible more accountable moving forward and set a new standard of higher expectations. Both Ardeep and Damian both try and work exceedingly hard however can only achieve the above if Crabtree directors are willing to reflect upon feedback provided, engage with residents, listen carefully and learn from feedback provided to make relevant changes so desperately needed to improve in the future.