SpotahomeReviews 157

After booking a cohab space with them in Brussels, and then realising that there were 40% extra charges on top of the list price, and exclsuions that one can asusme are normal for cohab space (like a TV), I asked (less than 24 hours later) for a refund and to cancel the booking. They refused, saying the cancellation is less than 30 days before taking up the room (since I booked 14 days before the date, it is physically impossoble for me to cancel in more than 30 days notice). They refused to refund my substantial deposit. And I have had to take it to the Belgian consumer protection agency. They show no interest in any need for an aimcable or fair resolution. Greedy, unfair, and ruthless company.

Not only they deceive people,but also do not get back the deposit. I've paid for the whole month and lived there less than month, the landlord decided to keep deposit for the period in which I didn't live. The landlord doesn't answer the calls and emails, and lied the agency that I lived the second part of the month. Even though he knew in advance about my staying and that I have to check out much earlier then I was supposed to.
And spotahome agency also knew that I checked in later because of them(they knew my day of arrival and nobody answer for my call) and checked out earlier.

I feel like I got scammed. I booked a listing and trusted the pricing overview and payment summary. The spotahome fee is barely visible as well and not shown clearly. It is also quite expensive, at about 30% of the rent price. Then all of a sudden I have to pay an additional 480€ because it was listed at the near bottom of the page in grey characters under landlord policies. The fee was nowhere else but to be seen there. I know I should have looked more carefully but honestly it was all quite misleading and intransparent for me.

DO NOT EVER USE SPOTAHOME.

I'm a student and I was looking for a place to stay for Study Abroad in England. And I made the stupidest mistake of my life booking through Spotahome. I will genuinely regret it for the rest of my life.

Spotahome markets itself as an easy way to get in touch with local landlords across the world with a responsible middleman to make the process smooth. That could not be further from the truth. First red flag is they have no phone number, email, or address to contact. You can only submit issues through a form and cannot directly get in touch with them until they decide to respond to you, no matter how urgent the issue.

I don't even know where to begin with how unprofessional and dishonest this company is. First of all, they are incredibly shady with payments before you even get in touch with a landlord. If you apply for a house just to see more info about it and the landlord accepts, you are automatically charged. No time to look over details, no time to think about it, and no refund possible. But fine, I found a place through them. The first issue I ran into was they tried to charge me first month's rent twice. The landlord demanded I send it to him, but Spotahome was also charging me the same amount upon move-in. It took weeks for them to tell the landlord not to charge me because they get all rental payments (which is weird considering he supposedly has listed on their website for years and has multiple positive reviews (which you can't actually read or verify)). Then, when the landlord starting making up lies and trying to charge me for problems that already existed at his property, Spotahome said too bad, we aren't responsible for the landlord's behavior. Which is absolutely insane considering they list his properties on their website and make money off of him, but if he does anything unprofessional or illegal, they're not responsible. Fine. Then, someone broke into the flat where I was living and I wanted to move out early. But, due to Spotahome's policy, I would've had to pay an additional 30 days of rent so I had to stay there. At the end of the day, I was looking at all of the rental payments they had taken from my account and realized they had overcharged me almost $2000 in rent. I had to point that out to them, and I am still currently fighting to get my money back. I have spent hours and hours trying to resolve this and they simply do not care. They will rob you blind. Look literally anywhere else for a place to stay.

This is the worst housing agency. They lure you into contracts with lies and take no responsibility when you complain. Expensive agency fees are of no help. Their only goal is to scam and take money from international students. There are many better options like Uniplaces (although their agency fees are high too), HousingAnywhere, Aluna.it, so never use this agency. Many others have suffered like me, and they haven't even received replies to their emails. I'm stuck in the worst house for the worst six months. I'll say it again, this place is the worst, so look elsewhere.

I want to warn everyone, especially women, against renting rooms through Spotahome in this house in Parede near Lisbon in Portugal:

Rua Dr. António Cândido 5,2775-236 PAREDE, Cascais area, PORTUGAL.

HUGE SCAM

First of all, the landlord never returns the deposit. He just shamelessly steals your deposit.
Spotahome cooperates with this criminal landlord and shares the profits. You can only recover stolen money in court.

Secondly, the room doesn't look like the photos on the Spotahome. I am attaching real photos here. There is a huge problem with fungi and mould in this house, huge spiders, ants, stench, renovation never completed, everything left halfway and not finished because the landlord suffers from mental illness.

Additionally, if you book a room in winter, be prepared to almost die from cold because there is NO heating in the house. The electrical installation is also broken, the washing machine, shower and internet keep turning off due to a short circuit in the installation (landlord wants to save even more money on a circuit that is not adapted to the building), non health and safety compliance, dangerous for your life!

Furthermore, be prepared for enormous stress and constant discomfort because the landlord suffers from Bipolar disorder, he is a borderline narc, he isn't real Portuguese, he won't even welcome you with a tiny smile when you arrive, forget about helping with the luggage, etc. He will meet you with angry face at the doors as if he is making you favour that you pay him. Very sick, nasty, demonic male with heavy control freak issues. He is constantly unemployed and goes into the house every day and watches the tenants, he has problems with anger control, has alternating attacks of outbursts of aggression and then tries to talk normally and pretend to be normal.

There is no end to the problems, broken door handles, satanic ornaments, mold settles even on your private clothes in the wardrobe, only male tenants rent there because it's such a nightmare. One of them is a pervert. Spotahome protects criminal landlords because together they create profits. If you don't want to end up in the court like me, you'll be safer in a tent.

From the state of the appartement? Dirty as hell, no bed, had to sleep on the coach for 4 month!(totally different than in reality). The landlord? Lier, thief, dishonest, sexiste, but with a big smile to steal your deposit after you leave. Check in? NO and arrival 3 days late. Check out? No and 3 days earlier! Spotahome? 10 Replies saying it's normal and 0 help for NOTHING. The ref on the appartement; 463W53-NZ

We rented an apartment in Madrid for out daughter's semester abroad thru Spotahome. They "verified" the property (stating that they guarantee all of the amenities are present), and in fact it was a lie. The place is terrible - really expensive, landlord is incredibly difficult, and the amenities listed as verified on Spotahome are not there. I have reached out to them thru their portal (which is the only way to get in touch) and have had no reply - they state on their site that "You will have a contact person who will handle your case from start to finish" - THIS IS A LIE. Don't use the service, it is a scam.

I reserved a place through Spotahome, but shortly after, I found another offer on a different website that was much closer to where I intended to stay in Porto. Attempting to cancel my booking with Spotahome within 24 hours, I discovered that it was one day short of their 60-day cancellation policy. Despite my efforts, they declined to refund my deposit in full, resulting in a loss of $723 USD. Be cautious when booking with Spotahome, and ENSURE you're absolutely certain of your booking details beforehand or you will lose A LOT of money when you cancel, my bank could not even get me a refund.

I booked and apartment via Spotahome and after having paid, I found out that:
1) Landlord demanded 250 euros extra deposit,
2) Adress cannot be registered even though the listing said "possibility of domiciliation: yes",
3) Landlord requested a registration fee,

Landlord's rental contract included unfriendly clauses such as
1) Tenant is responsible for repairing windows whatever broke them
2) Tenant is responsible for any damages due to a theft or an attempt of theft
3) Tenant is responsible for vandalism by a third party
4) Tenant can be evicted in one week
5) Tenant will pay a six-month penalty for cancelling the contract (a fixed term contract for the duration of three months)
6) No compensation even if the apartment is under repair work for the whole duration of the lease
7) Landlord has the right to evict any visitors – so your mom cannot visit you.

In short, the contract was unacceptable.

Landlord was unwilling to make any changes to his policies. None of the policies were listed on Spotahome.com. Spotahome was unable to solve the issue. They were also unwilling to refund anything.

So in the end, I did not get an apartment and lost 2202 euros.

I am not saying Spotahome planned for this, but their business model (lack of transparency on landlord policies combined with strict cancellation rules) allows situations like this to occur.

They claim to be "honest renting experience" and to have gathered "all the information one needs to make a final decision". These are simply false statements.

I had a very bad experience with them. Be very mindful about purchasing and apartment or room or bed. The slightest human error that you make and they'll take advantage of that. Landlord said it was a room, and it ended up being 700 euros for a bed. They didn't put that on the title, and it wasn't until later that it was a bed and sharing room with a stranger. Spotahome never offered help. And I left a review in trustpilot and guess what? Spotahome took it down because "it wasn't a genuine experience". My bank didn't want to help. And PayPal said the seller had the right to take the money.

I'm a landlord in Berlin, Spotahome deducted a full month rent from my tenant bank account, and then never managed to transfer it to my bank account for me to cover mortgage and utilities.
Two months on, and still no solution in sight even though I did sign their rental protection agreement.
STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY!

I booked an accommodation with Spotahome and paid the price that was shown on their website, When I'm supposed to move in The Landlord is not picking up, Spotahome helpline suggested that I book an emergency accommodation, out of my pocket. When the landlord gets back to me, the lease agreement has abusrd deposits, which were not mentioned on the website. The Landlord approved the booking now I don't have a place to stay and They are not responding to my request for a refund.

I would like to share my wonderful experience with the Spotahome website. This is the second time I have applied to this company. The first experience was also not very successful, but the second one surpassed everything that could be done.
I have selected a room on this site. I agreed with the price and saw that it would be necessary to pay the deposit.
Next, I contacted the owner and asked him to make a contract for rent and registration at the place of stay, since I am studying on a student visa, and these documents are very important to me. He did not agree very willingly, took a photo of our passports with the girl in advance and said that he would go to the administration and let us register. A couple of days before arrival, I wrote to the landlord again, and reminded him that registration was needed – he said he hadn't done it, but when you come, we'll figure it out. Don't worry.
The day of arrival has arrived. We came to the apartment and it started.
The first thing that became a problem was that the photos on the site and in reality are very different. There is no piece of furniture as in the photo, there is no TV, everything is in very poor condition, the door handle is falling off, some nails are sticking out of the wall near the head, everything in the common kitchen is in very poor condition and dirty. There is a terrible stench in the room, which does not go even after opening the window (it has been 3 days – all my things still smell of this smell). Since we had nowhere to go and we had a lot of things with us, we decided that all this could be tolerated for a while.
Next, the landlord said that we should leave a deposit. We knew about this, were ready and agreed to it, but for our own safety, guarantees and other things, we asked you to draw up a room rental contract for us, register the condition of the room there, so that later there would be no complaints against us, indicate that we had taken a deposit of 650 euros and that they would oblige us to return it if we We won't break anything. The owner refused to give us such documents. He told us that a verbal promise that he would return it to us was enough. Since we are foreigners in this country, we insisted that we need these documents, that we cannot just give a pledge without a contract and confirmation from him, this is a very big risk for us. And moreover, we were promised in advance that all these documents would be done. So the conflict broke out. The landlord started shouting at us, tearing out our luggage, trying to throw it out into the hallway, and pushed me hard. We decided to call the police and settle the matter with them. We asked for a peaceful settlement of this issue, we simply asked for a refund of the money that we paid a month in advance, since we are not ready to live in this apartment, since it is in terrible condition, since we cannot be guaranteed a refund of the deposit, since the landlord rushes at us with strong aggression and tries to physically to influence.
We called Spotahome support. We asked them to help resolve the issue, we told them that it was written on their website that in case of problems in the first 24 hours upon arrival they would help us, and if anything, they would find new housing and compensate all expenses. But they didn't listen to us. We were told that the room is in good condition and that the photos on the site are just indicative and approximate, that you can clean up there with the owner, that you are not required to provide any documents, and since you do not pay a deposit, you can leave and lose all the money. We couldn't get anything out of this site that evening and had to urgently look for other accommodation for the weekend.
Since Monday, we have been in contact with Spotahome support for a long time. We asked them to help us, explained the reasons that the apartment was in terrible condition, that the aggression of the landlord was taken out on us, that we were not given any guarantees of repayment of the advance. But they didn't help us in any way. We were told that it was your own fault, that we couldn't help you in any way. According to your photos, there is nothing terrible in the apartment, you are not required to provide any documents. We have rules that we strictly follow and so on and so forth. I asked them to settle the issue peacefully – to return the money to us and would be generally pleased with their reaction. I would continue to rent other apartments through them, pay them a commission each time and recommend them to my acquaintances and friends.
What are the conclusions: We are submitting an appeal to the police. We are submitting an appeal to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, we are preparing a court complaint with an attorney. This is the worst rental company I've ever seen. They place unverified ads, in case of problems they will never refund your money, they will not help you in any way and they will throw and throw you at the very moment you need. In contrast, when we had problems with renting through Booking.com – we were reimbursed for financial losses, and were given a lot of bonuses and helped resolve any issues.

I was totally scammed by this company.

When you initiate a booking request to an apartment on their website they ask you to provide your Credit Card full information for verification promising that nothing would be deducted till the owner receive your ID, salary slips and many other documents that they have stated on their site.

Till you provide this documentation the Tenant and owner has the full right to withdraw from this agreement for whatever reason they have (e.g finding a better apartment).

In my case, once I provided my Credit Card information they immediately charged me with the full amount without getting any documentation from my side depriving me from my right to cancel during this period of providing my documentation.

I have contacted them making it clear that they are going against their own policy but they refused to give me a full refund.

Clear scamming, fraud and unprofessional acts.

I cancelled a booking N*******-Y3 shortly after making it. Charged €347 by Spotahome for momentary booking on top of a down payment for the first month of a property which I could not view.Instead I was asked to pay all months rent and utility bills for a property i could not view in advance. I reached out to the landlord and spotahome within 24 hours where I was met with silence. It has been the most unpleasant booking experience I have ever had thus far.

If only I could leave 0 stars!
These guys are scammers and con artists.
They added almost 600 EUROS of hidden fees AFTER I had booked and said (of course) that I could not cancel the booking.
They stole 1800 EUROS of my money.
Everything about this company from the "customer service" (the lack of it) to the properties available and the property owners is terrible.
HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE.
AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

So I booked a flat in Berlin for 15 months when in reality I wanted 3, I was able to make this change easily and successfully. This was the only positive part about this experience. I had booked this apartment out of desperation as it is extremely difficult to find a place to live in Berlin that isn't a sublet of some person leaving for vacation and looking to capitalize on the few weeks their apartment will be vacant. I really dislike this because it places a lot of short term listings "on the market" when a lot of people are looking for a solid place to live. Back to Spotahome...when I booked the flat the payment was declined because they don't take AMEX and I had to use my dad's Visa to make the booking. The bank flagged it as potential fraud and sent him a message to confirm. He confirmed, but I never tried to make the booking again. Spotahome sent me an email the next day saying the ticket was closed. A few days later after receiving tons of emails and texts from Spotahome I sent one of their support reps a message saying the ticket was closed and that I was sick and couldn't move in (I subsequently received a response two weeks later from this rep after receiving more than 30 messages from other reps at Spotahome). Over the course of the next three weeks I've received emails and text messages every 2-3 days from Spotahome asking me to setup direct debit for my monthly rent along with asking me to verify my identity. I even got a message from the landlord asking what was going on and that he was raising the rent on me. This was about one week after I had mostly ignored all of these requests and Spotahome had actually sent me a message saying that I could rent the same place now for €150 extra a month. This company is an absolute sh** show and I would never deal with them again. I haven't even figured out whether or not they tried to charge my dad's card. I received a message from Michael, the guy I messaged in support that said they would cancel the booking and refund the initial fee. This was weeks after I messaged him and I received an email saying the ticket was closed. These people are amateurs and shouldn't be trusted.

Terrible customer service. There is no response and there is no replies to inquiries. It is impossible to view the contract before the first rent payment is deducted from the credit card, and the fact that you have a problem with several clauses in the contract is not a reason for them to cancel the deal. In the end we did not sign any contract and despite this we paid an unnecessary one month's rent. From that moment, no one in customer service responded to our complaints.