Thefortishouse Avis 3

I booked a stay at Fortis House in Christchurch through Fortis House Villas / The Bournemouth Villa and paid a £750 refundable deposit along with the full cost of the stay in advance.
After our stay, the deposit was not returned, and repeated attempts to contact the company about the return of the money were ignored.
With no other option available, I had to pursue the matter through the County Court. The case was heard in July 2025, and the court ruled in my favour by granting a County Court Judgment.
Even with a court judgment in place, the money has still not been paid.
Bailiffs were appointed in October 2025 to enforce the judgment, but they were unable to recover any funds or locate the company.
It is extremely disappointing that legal action and enforcement measures were required just to attempt to recover a deposit from a holiday rental booking.
I am sharing my experience so that others can make an informed decision before booking.

Avoid renting this property at all costs! Initially we were onto a winner, communication was good leading upto the holiday but when we got there we noticed so many things wrong with the property, which we took photographic and video evidence before we unloaded our suitcases! The house wasn’t the cleanest for a start, the staircase was broken, beds were strapped together with cable ties because the screws had become worn and loose, there were molehills everywhere in the garden making it unpleasant to walk across the grass… don’t get me wrong most of the house was liveable and the hot tub was the highlight of the week! me and my friends had a wonderful week away once we got ourselves settled in but it was after the holiday ended that left a sour taste in our mouths! We were a group of 18 people and we cleaned that house too to bottom at the end of our stay, it was cleaner than when we arrived, we looked after the property and I emailed Max to let him know this and we were expecting to receive our £750 deposit to be repaid! BUT Max has ignored all of my emails, text messages and phone calls and we are now 8 months on…. As a group we will be starting legal proceedings against this man! DO NOT RENT this property unless you aren’t bothered about receiving your deposit back and take lots of photo evidence of the damages that are already in the house if you do stay here!

We stayed at the property in August and everything seemed ok.
After our stay, I received multiple abusive emails from "Max" which was incredibly shocking. He accused us of breaking the staircase which we vehemently denied. He then said he'd be taking our full deposit and not returning any of the £750. We researched him online and it turns out he's pulled a similar scam at "the bournemouth villa". We confronted him with this information and he hasn't replied & is now ignoring us meaning we need to take legal proceedings.
DO NOT be fooled by reviews on Booking.com, AirBnB or other sites. They clearly try this scam on people who only rent directly with them as those people cannot leave a negative review on the aforementioned site &, conveniently, the official review section on their website says "coming soon" which it has done for a while now.
AVOID at all costs. Horrible customer experience, received vulgar emails full of profanity.