u/John_Needleson

DNOs and National Grid are clearly struggling to retain field-workers - Protection/Commissioning Engineers, SAPs, Fitters, Jointers, Linesmen

Hence the massive uptick in outsourcing work and entire projects to contractors.

Clearly, contractors must put much better offers on the table.

If you're in the industry, I would appreciate if you could share:

- The role (132-400kv Protection Engineers, 132-400kv SAPs, 132-400kv Fitters, Jointers, Linesmen)

- The pay/benefits offered by the contractor (better if you can compare DNO/NG vs contractor)

- Area of the country eg - Scottish Highlands, English Midlands, West England, Wales, etc

No need to name any companies, if you would like not to.

It's impossible to locate information on this without being in the industry. From what I've seen online, these positions at DNOs/NG seem to pay reasonably well from an outside perspective. Therefore, the offers made by contracting firms must be significantly higher for staff to consistently keep leaving.

Thank you for sharing!

My partner and I recently applied to rent a property in Ealing, London.

I viewed the property, decided to proceed, and paid a holding deposit. The amount requested was 1.947 weeks’ rent, which I now understand is above the 1 week rent cap under the Tenant Fees Act 2019.

After paying, the following happened:

• I passed the referencing and was put in contact with the landlord
• I was told only half of the holding deposit would go towards the first month’s rent.
• The tenancy agreement provided only mentioned that half.
• The other half was not clearly accounted for.
• The landlord said the other half was a “separate charge made by the agency”.
• I was also told I might need to pay up to 3 months’ rent in advance.
• By day 15 after paying the holding deposit, daily back and forth, no tenancy agreement had been agreed because they had not explained what had happened to the other half of the holding deposit.
• I asked for the full holding deposit to be refunded, without saying I was withdrawing my application.
• The landlord threatened in writing to withhold the full amount and gave a new deadline to sign, which I did not accept. "If you do not sign, the whole payment will be retained"
• The agent repeatedly pressured me to withdraw my application, but would not clearly confirm that withdrawing would result in a full refund.
• The agent sent me their own policy documents as “proof”, but those documents said the full holding deposit is only returned if the agent/landlord withdraws.
• When I pointed this out, the agent suggested I was being a nuisance and disrupting his work.
• After I showed the landlord’s threats to the agent and asked again, I received a vague confirmation, sent my bank details, and the full refund arrived very quickly afterwards.

I have now received the full refund.

I have reported the matter to Ealing Council and Trading Standards. I also have full transcripts/emails and everything is in writing.

My main concern now is that this agency still has copies of sensitive documents, and their handling of the holding deposit has made me uncomfortable with them retaining my data as they are, at least in my eyes, bad actors.

Can I also make a right to erasure / right to be forgotten request asking them to delete my ID documents, bank statements, payslips, and other application documents? They have forwarded all my documents to the landlord as well, who operates via a company himself. Can I also request erasure from him too?

Also, can I send the letting agency a DSAR asking for all personal data they hold about me and my partner? Also the recorded reason for the application not proceeding? I am worried they have recorded the reason as “tenant withdrew”, even though I never stated that I was withdrawing. Would a SAR cover this? Or should I leave this part for the investigations that may/will take place?

I am also trying to get advice from the free legal advice line from Shelter England, but that may take a while.

Highly grateful for any advice.

Hi. I really need some advice here, super thankful in advance.

Had a viewing, liked the property, was asked to pay approximately 1 week worth of rent as holding deposit £369 (out of £1600 pm) + £350 one off payment for bills that will cover the whole length of the "bills included" tenancy.

I then passed the referencing and was put in touch with the landlord, who sent me the rental agreement. There was no mention of any one off payments. I brought this up with him before signing, he said he doesn't know anything about such a payment and I should contact the agency.

We went back and forth a bit and he has now told me:

>The £350 payment was not paid to us and is not held by us. We are therefore contacting the agency directly to ask them to clarify the basis on which this payment was requested, what it was intended to cover, and how it has been treated.

Until we receive clarification from the agency, we do not want to provide you with inaccurate information regarding a payment that was not collected by us.

Now, I do have undisputable proof of what the agent told me regarding this "one off payment". At this point, I would like to pull out as the contract itself is a nightmare too. It states that:

- I am to have monthly inspections with 24h notice

- Cannot have anyone sleep over in the property without written consent from the landlord

- Any issues not reported within 24h of moving in will be considered to have been caused by me

- The flat is fully furnished but the contract has no inventory or condition report provided, meanwhile there are multiple highly worn out parts of the flat, including water/flood damage to the floor and ceiling in one area, which is very significant and impossible to miss.

There's more...but I won't bore you. What are my options for pullign out without losing my deposit and mystery £350 payment?

Edit:
PS: The agent isn't inherently a scammer, or a standalone bad actor to my understanding as he does work for a (albeit fairly small) letting agency.

Hi, I was looking for opinions and experiences all over Reddit before deciding to go with this provider based on being told by a friend that they went there and I just wanted to share my experience in a format that I wish someone had shared when I was researching them...

I booked the (slightly cheaper, £745) online assessment which I believe was supposed to be 1h long but it ended up taking just over 90 minutes.

Before the assessment, I was sent a lot of forms and questionairres to populate. There was one especially thorough one which was to be populated by my parent(s), or myself.

The doctor I was assigned - Joanna Woodger - was helpful, reassuring, warm, and I felt like she conducted a thorough assessment while guiding me to stay on topic. She conducted herself in an empathic and yet professional manner. I did not feel like I was just given a diagnosis without being appropriately assessed (this was something I was afraid of).

For what it's worth, I went into this assessment in my mid 20s with the though that I surely don't have ADHD because my life was functioning just fine, thanks to the 1 million coping and management strategies I have implemented.

At the end of the assessment I was diagnosed with ADHD (mixed) and prescribed Lisdexamfetamine as a starting point and told to book titration appointment (£150) for 1 month from now. The titration appointments are 15 min online and with other people, not the original doc I have had my assessment with, unless I explicitly want to have it with them, for which I'd have to pay extra.

When researching the doc's name I saw both good and bad experiences across Reddit. My experience was excellent, I'd have trouble imagining how the assessment appointment could've gone better.

Overall, I am looking forward to basic things becoming a bit easier and not entirely dependent on structured mechanisms I've built.