LOCA BARCELONA — Local services in Barcelona

tL;dR: they're selective with clients. Fall on their bad side and you're out....or they don't know how to run a business. Read and you be the judge.

I have to start this by saying that I have no way of proving what I'm about to write. It's just personal analysis. So someone from LocaBarcelona can reply to this by saying how I'm wrong bla bla etc. Fair enough.

That being said, there are three types of behavior that happened during my interaction with them. I'll call them: pre-event, the event, post-event.

Pre-event: They were super nice people in the beginning. They told me that I initially had to make a payment of 500 euros to secure like a pre-booking. Then later on, if my initial listing would get rejected, they could work with me to get a 2nd one approved, which seems logical from a business pov (500 to secure a client while we work with them through multiple options in order to not lose the sale).

They told me I could call them at anytime, that they're always there for me bla bla nice support and client retention. I was glad.

The event: I had a call with a foreign commercial agent (non-native Spanish. I am), where I couldn't understand some numbers she was telling me of an address, and I told her so, so she ended up spelling out the digits for me. I felt her sadness and anger through the phone, but thought no big deal. I mean, it wasn't my intention. I just wanted an address.

Post-event: After the event, the treatment from LocaBarcelona towards me changed.

No more "call us whenever you want". Now it was "only Whatsapp" (said to me by the agent in charge of my case).

The offer for my initial listing was rejected (normal, it happens), but it literally didn't pass not even 30 second from when I received the email from the agent assigned to me (telling me I was going to be refunded) to the moment that he refunded the 500 euros back to my account.

And I know it was less than 30 seconds because I was on my phone when I received his email, and when I immediately started to write my reply like "But didn't you guys tell me that you were going to work with me for a 2nd option?", I received the money back in my account.

I of course told him that I was interested in another flat of theirs and his reply was "that's taken already", to what I answered "if it's taken, why is it on your site?". His answer "we're waiting for the client's payment".

My immediate thought was "so you're promoting flats in your site that are actually taken?". That sounds very illogical from a business perspective...or you're just pushing me away.

Also, now a pre-payment wasn't needed. They could work with me without it. Then why do you make your clients make a payment first and suddenly it's not needed?

I sent him a 3rd option I was interested in, and his first reply was "that's available for January" (I knew that. It's on the listing, and around the same date of my initial listing (Dec 25th), so it shouldn't have mattered within my profile). No "let's work with that", "let's send the documents to the client", etc.

It literally felt like they were expecting for me to get bored and go away. I was the client, the person with the money, and I was the one chasing them, instead of them shoving flats to my face to close the sale...the business is either ran by kids that don't know what they're doing or they in fact pushed me away due to the event.

EDIT: Aaah! And I forgot, the event happened because they had a flat saying that it was in a district, but the location in Google Maps was in another district (that's why I asked for the address).

So add to this review "wrong info...

I cannot stress enough how utterly awful my experience with LOCA Barcelona, a property management agency in Barcelona, has been. From the very beginning to the bitter end, they have demonstrated nothing but sheer incompetence and a complete lack of professionalism. If you're considering working with them, I implore you to steer clear and spare yourself the misery. Communication? Forget about it. LOCA Barcelona seems to take an eternity to respond to anything. Whether it's a simple inquiry or a pressing issue, their sluggishness is maddening. It's almost as if they believe that time moves differently for them. But let's talk about more than just sluggishness. Dealing with LOCA Barcelona is like trying to communicate with a brick wall. They're not only slow but also extremely difficult to work with. Their hesitance to take action is baffling and infuriating. It's as if they're allergic to responsibility. Now, let's discuss the elephant in the room: their exorbitant fees. They have no qualms about taking your hard-earned money for every little thing, yet the quality of service they provide is a complete joke. Paying a small fortune in agency fees only to receive a crumpled tote bag as a "welcome present" is an insult. When you're shelling out significant amounts of money, you deserve more than a cheap trinket. Speaking of quality, let's touch on their cleaning "service." We were promised a clean apartment upon moving in, but what we got was anything but that. The 150€ cleaning fee we had to pay was an absolute scam. Not only did the apartment remain dirty, but the cleaner they sent clearly spent all of 30 minutes pretending to clean. We ended up having to roll up our sleeves and clean ourselves - what an absolute waste. Don't even get me started on their lackluster employee turnover rate and the subsequent lack of communication within their own ranks. It's as if they've created a breeding ground for chaos and confusion. When you're met with nothing but problems and disarray, it's clear that something is fundamentally broken within the agency. Perhaps the pièce de résistance of LOCA Barcelona's incompetence is their claim of being in contact with property owners. It's all smoke and mirrors. Promises of quick answers and communication were nothing more than empty words. They never followed up, leaving us in the dark about crucial matters. As if this nightmare couldn't get any worse, their handling of the deposit return takes the cake. According to them, we were supposed to receive our deposit within 30 days of our contract ending. Yet, they conveniently reached out exactly on the 30th day at 7 p.m. with unprofessional homemade bills that were riddled with errors. These mistakes could have cost us a whopping 500€! It's clear that they care more about squeezing extra money out of you than being transparent and fair. They wanted us to write a good review as we signed the contract: well, good that we did not! In summary, LOCA Barcelona is the epitome of an unreliable and unprofessional property management agency. They're a scam, plain and simple. Save yourself the headache, frustration, and financial loss by staying as far away from them as possible. Your peace of mind and wallet...

Terrible service, avoid at all costs.

I have been living and renting in Barcelona for 5 years and loca Barcelona has been the worst and most unprofessional serviced i have used in Barcelona. I will list facts below and let you come to your own conclusion.

Before moving in i was asked to pay deposit and bond total of 8.5k euros. The payment bounced. They had made a typing mistake and gave me wrong bank account number. Very lucky it bounced.

They did not tell me the other side of the bedroom walls was a heavy construction site. I asked for compensation. They gave me 50% discount on 14 days of a 56day contract.

Getting the deposit back took 7 weeks. They said 4 max.

The deposit resume had many mistakes that i had to fix for them my self, including do all the math.

Dates for utility bills charged were dated from before i moved in to after i moved out.

They forgot to discount for the construction works. Had to remind them 3 times.

Tried to charge me the second months rent twice.

Cleaning fee was incorrect.

Had to ask for receipts for everything.

Refused to show me official water and electricity bills. Told me the owner told them the number. Had no proof.

All of this is pure lack of competence, no internal communication between staff and high level of laziness and unprofessionalism.

However there were to many consistent mistakes for this to be genuine. I was beginning to believe they were trying to scam me. Hoping i would get tired of the constant emails and hopefully miss one of their mistakes. There was to many 'sorry we forgot' 'sorry we missed that' 'sorry you are right' for this to only be lack of competence.

The only good thing i can say about them is all the staff were very friendly.

If you are busy and don't have time to chase, follow up and do their job for them i highly recommend you don't use...