The Atelier, W14

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

Two great local restaurants are nearby: The Bird In The Hand and The Havelock Tavern. A little further on, you also have Brook Green Park and playground which is a nice walk for families. Holland Park is also near but is an awkward walk if you have a push chair. The nice end of Kensington High St is also about a 20 minute walk. On the downside, good transport is not particularly close though having Kensington Olympia just there means you can get to Hampstead much more easily than you can get to central London. Noise and air pollution are also an issue. The area is also hemmed in by large A-roads and once traffic picked up after lockdowns, you could really feel the pollution in your lungs. This is compounded by the huge building site next door as they redevelop Kensington Olympia. I recall the prospectus said that the rather small garden in the courtyard provides you with "the freshest air", which would be a good line in a parody about how agents like to oversell given the size of the garden and the amount of pollution in the area. Scooters also swarm the street after dark because its a through road, meaning its very noisy if you're in one of the many flats that looks onto Sinclair Road.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

Residents were mostly treated as irritants, particularly when issues occurred. We lost access to running water 9 times in 18 months and the communication was quite aggressive to deflect blame onto the developer and to ask residents to "stop emailing" until the issue was resolved.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

Sinclair Road (a through road) is extremely loud at night because of all the delivery scooters. Also no decent grocery stores are near, so not great for families. Never got to use the amenities due to the pandemic but they still made us pay for them.

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

Conveniently located within 10-15 mins walking distance of Westfield London and Shepherd's Bush station. Closest transport available would be Kensington Olympia Station, however, the overground schedule isn't super reliable. There are a couple of local off-license shops nearby which makes it easy to grab essentials without having to make the trek to the main shopping area near Shepherds Bush Green.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

CityZen are terrible, slow to respond. Took 52 days to replace a broken piece of furniture. Does not care about tenants, only their bottom line. We had to write a formal complaint and told them we would report them to the property ombudsman, property redress scheme and trading standards for breach in their duty of care. They told us it was up to us if we wanted to live in our apartments with no running water, but then after the flood happened they insisted they did everything they could. One of the property managers, FiFi Lau, laughed at me when I called her distressed about the situation. I would never recommend their services to anyone.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

I would have never moved in if I knew what I know now. I will never rent a property via CityZen ever again, they have a shady agreement with the developer to sell the apartments to overseas landlords who think that just because they live overseas that they don't have a duty to their tenants to provide a habitable residence. They will just simply say it's not their fault.