Not the company they were being warned. Review on Jamesvillas

Please beware before you book and ensure that you check the terms and conditions! James Villas state that they are not liable for any information on what they supply on their website. They also state that the contract is between you and a third-party, if any issues arise. They are effectively wavering any responsibility from James Villas, leaving you to deal with an unknown company in a foreign country - which you have no information about when booking. The villa we booked was described on the James Villa website as; ‘delightful’ and ‘charming’. The photographs used are 11 years old. They do not reflect the current state of the villa.

We arrived at the villa in Cyprus. It is in a terrible condition with serious safety issues. One of the first things we discovered was a knife lying in the grounds, which our daughter discovered. The next day, when James Villa’s office was open - we raised the issues of the appalling condition of this villa. After supplying with photographs and videos they agreed that the property should not have been rented out in its current condition. During one of the conversations with the office staff, they informed that our contract is not with them, but the property maintenance company.

Two maintenance men arrived later that day, one of them stated that: you should not have booked with James Villa; they are useless and will be out of business by next year. We said that we had booked a villa in 2018 with them, and the Villa was fantastic, he stated that this is not the same company now. We have come to realise this now. They also stated that the issues we raised, were already known to James Villa and that the property owner will not spend any money on repairing the property. Whilst on the telephone to his office, the contempt for James Villas was quite apparent. We showed them the website information and photographs to compare what we had booked and what we had arrived to. They told us that these photographs were 11 years old - which was also confirmed by James Villas later on. old. They did resolve some minor issues, but to resolve all of the issues raised, the property needs to be closed down and refurbished. This villa should not have been rented out in its current state and of the safety issues. James Villa agreed with this. When we spoke to one of the customer advisors, he agreed that the property was in a terrible condition and advised us that he was on our side(for now!). In an email trail, we were cc’d in he asked the management company as to why these issues were not resolved before the holiday season started and why were they still unresolved in mid season. In this chain of emails the management company responded back saying that the sun-beds had been slashed with a knife and that the previous guest had not reported this. They stated that they were going to charge James Villa for this. They also implied that one of the major issues we had raised, had happened after we had arrived. Fortunately we had video footage from an hour after arriving at the property to dispute this. The contempt between both the two parties and the management company towards the guests was very clear. At this point we wondered what we had got ourselves into. The aforementioned sun-beds had not been slashed with a knife, they had fallen apart as they were so old.

We are now 10 days into the holiday and the property remains in a terrible condition. The majority of the issues, especially the safety ones, have not been resolved. If this was in the UK, the pool area would have been closed down. You cannot begin to imagine our experience with James Villa and the property maintenance company. We asked James Villa to move us to a different property. They stated that there was none available, but when we checked their website, one was available. We asked if we could view this property. They did not respond and eventually after several emails which they initially ignored, they told us that the property was now booked. This experience of James Villas not responding to emails, or not directly addressing the issues on the email and responding with something else, became a theme throughout our entire dealings with them. This was very frustrating.

We did not initially book this villa We had an email from them saying that the Villa we had booked was not available. There was not much choice at this point and we had already booked the flights, so we had no option but to choose this villa. The reviews on the James Villa website were showing 4 out of 5. The issues raised had been responded to by James Villa, saying that they would sort out the problems. However, since booking this villa it has gone down to 3 out of 5, which we did not realise and the issues that we have raised are similar to the known issues on the website. The cleaner arrived on Wednesday and she also confirmed that she had also reported back the issues we had raised, but nothing gets done. James Villa advised us that they need to go down the compensation route, as the property management group were not taking the action needed to resolve the issues. We asked several times if we could just move, so that we could get away from this awful situation. They informed us that this was not an option. We then asked if they could resolve the compensatory issue so that we had the funds to move somewhere else. They came back with one offer, which amounted to less than the cost of 2 nights stay at this villa. James Villa stressed that they do not pay put compensation but this was from the property management company. We declined the offer as it would not have allowed us to move elsewhere. We are now looking to follow the complaints process with ABTA when we return home.