Vivhousing Reviews 36

Miss. Hernandez was very helpful with my leasing; she explained in great detail and took time to help me understand all the steps needed. I'm very thankful. It was a great experience.

I really enjoy the operation, since the onboarding email until getting into my Room, everything went well and was quite clear.

The experience trought Onboarding was amazing, really nice staff. I felt very welcome and the atmosphere is great.

Really nice apartment - new, well equipped and good furniture.
Very good customer support, always avaliable and friendly!

It's good until it's not! The room was nice and everything but as soon as you have any kind of problem it turns in to an absolute nightmare. Super rude communication and very cheap people work there. We had to move out of the appartment for a few days because there was some kind of damage. The appartment they gave us in the meantime was disgusting. It was dirty, you couldn't lock the door of the room, wifi didn't work and even tho I stayed in a 4 bedroom appartment before they put me in a 10 bedroom appartment. I told them that this is unacceptable but they don't give a shit, they brushed me off, didn't take my calls and overall absolutely disgusting behavior. I had to pay in the end for an airbnb and what they covered of that was an absolute joke. If you complain they always make it seem like they are not at fault at all and that they acted completely right in the situation you can also see this when they answer these reviews genuinely feel so bad for all the people that wrote one here cuz I believe every single one of them 100%. Genuinely save yourself the trouble, maybe pay a little more but make sure you don't book via VIV housing trust me!

I was answered by VIV housing as follows,
[Regarding the energy costs, all invoices and breakdowns were provided to ensure full transparency. We would also like to clarify that the €15 you mention refers to the cleaning fee, which is required to be paid each month alongside the rent.

We always strive to handle all matters with fairness and professionalism, and we regret that your experience did not reflect that].

Since these comments are being read by others, I need to clarify the cleaning fee, which was €15. All tenants, including myself, had to pay it every month. We all paid, and we can share the payment receipts.

What I have seen for the first time in my life is that we tenants received two energy bills: one while we were living in the apartment, and another two months after our contract ended. What is surprising is the huge discrepancy in the amounts listed on the energy bills. My question is: how is it possible that for April, my energy cost in the first bill was €4.79, but in the second bill for the same month it was €14.59? Or for May, €7.77 in the first bill, but nearly €16 in the second?

Put yourself in my shoes—what would you think?

Regarding the illegality of the contract, I should mention that I showed this contract to two Junta de Freguesia offices, and both emphasized that it is illegal.

This is a total scam; run and don't look back. Find any other housing rental agency. They are 100 percent fraud. Requests cash and wire transfer to private bank account BEFORE you can even see the room you may want to rent.

I booked a room in a 6-room apartment. Turns out some of the rooms keep 2 people at once. So instead of 6 there are now 8 people living here. But that’s not even the worst. When I moved in the apartment was in a horrible condition. There was maggots in the trashbins, the fridge was completely full of mold. The bathrooms looked absolutely disgusting and dirty. The room wasn’t cleaned properly and everything smells awful. The windows couldn’t open, the door to the apartment was always open and could not close. The list goes on and on. I had never seen something like this before. I moved out for two weeks till the landlord is fixing these issues. I didn’t get any money back. Absolutely ridiculous, do yourself a favour and do not book any of there rooms.

It should be in the negative.

Imagine if Monty Python ran a housing agency, you’d get VIV Housing. Imagine booking months in advance, thinking you’re set, only to be threatened with eviction before move-in because your first rent payment landed on a U.S. bank holiday. Flexibility? Compassion? Nope. Just a WhatsApp at 2 AM saying, “48 hours or you’re out.” That’s not property management, that’s hostage negotiation.

And I thought I had it bad — until I read my fellow tenants’ horror stories. One guy was literally left on the street with his luggage because VIV decided to change terms last-minute.

Imagine an accommodation service without the accommodation. The running theme? Gaslighting, nickel-and-diming, and the kind of arrogance that only thrives in a broken housing market. You don’t just rent with VIV — you star in their absurdist sitcom, where the punchline is always you.

So unless you enjoy being scammed, threatened, or forced homeless at the last second, do yourself a favor: Gallop, don’t run, away from VIV Housing.

They are out of their minds, expecting me to move in the same day when they sent me a check in details and payment link 10:30 PM on the day I’m supposed to move in. Where's the common sense? Then they expect me to pay 270 euros for an extra night due to the eir “quarterly rent basis” after I found out about that they offered to settle for 30 euros. Are they trying to scam me from the start? Note that this extra cost was NEVER included on the Uniplaces website.

I waited an entire day on the street with all my luggage because of the incompetence.

The last time you contacted me via WhatsApp was last Thursday, regarding the date change. This shows they had plenty of time to prepare the new payment link and a new contract. I have backups and screenshots of everything to support what I've said. Due to the incompetence and lack of transparency, I was forced to book an Airbnb. Ultimately, the 14 nights of accommodation, and my whole family thought VIV housing cancelled on me, which is very reasonable given the response time and the dates, which couldn't be justified.

Once I am now requesting a compensation and a full refund as this breaches the contract they are trying everything in their arsenal to refuse my right and entiltlement to refunds.

This is the worst company ever working with Uniplaces which is also another scam website trying to exploit foreigners and students.

Also their slow response times are giving me a huge headache. I will keep on updating the situation and comment until I get back what is mine

The apartment was advertised on Uniplaces as 64m² but is actually just 35m². This false advertising appears to be their standard practice, as they continue to list properties with misleading sizes. From the start, we had water leaks from the roof. The kitchen extractor vents inside, filling the small space with humidity. One of the main rooms is a poorly converted balcony, enclosed with sandwich plates, making it an oven in the sun and freezing in the cold. A heat pump also runs for hours every day, creating a constant, loud noise.

Beyond the physical state, our electricity meter was incorrect. Our two-person apartment was being billed for the consumption of a neighboring four-person unit. After we got official confirmation from the electricity authority, Vivahousing acted as if nothing was wrong. They stopped responding completely when we sent them a video of a technician correcting the mistake.

They also illegally charged us for condominium fees. When we proved it was their contractual duty to pay, they apologized for the 'mistake' and stopped charging us. However, we have spoken with other Vivahousing tenants who confirmed they are still being charged these same illegal fees.

Vivahousing ignored our most serious complaints and only acted when confronted with undeniable proof. Because of this pattern of bad faith, we have hired a lawyer, initiated legal action, and reported the company to the Portuguese authorities. Avoid this company.

I stayed at ViV Housing during my time as a student, and overall, it was a pretty good experience. One of the things I liked most was how easy it was to communicate with the management. They were respectful, helpful, and usually responded pretty quickly when something needed fixing in the apartment. That made things a lot less stressful. The location was also really good — close to everything I needed.

That said, there were a few things that could be better. The cleaning service wasn’t always consistent — sometimes the cleaner showed up, sometimes not. The room itself could use a bit of an update, especially the beds. The mattresses weren’t the most comfortable. And since I was on the 5th floor, I think the air conditioning could definitely be improved — it got quite hot at times.

All in all, I had a decent experience with ViV Housing. It’s a solid option, especially because of the people and the location, but with a few improvements, it could be great.

Good experience. Needed a room for a few month

The worst experience! terrible service, deposit was not returned on time and they calculated it incorrectly. I will not recommend to anyone!

DON'T EVER RENT FROM VIV HOUSING

They don't respect their customers. In our 4 months stay as students we had nothing but troubles.
Maintenance always going on, sometimes without prior notice, and can COMPLETLY disturb your everyday life and they don't take responsibility and blame it on the landlord.

We didn't have a toilet for 2 days and water was cut off for 2 days on another occasion for changing the boiler. Other important repair requests are left ignored, including the broken toilet lock.

You are going to be disturbed by many visits by strangers and your privacy is violated.

They have no respect for the tenants and no shame for their actions.

STAY AWAY AND SAVE YOURSELF!

They are stalling and not returning back to me the security deposit. It has been six months. Buyers beware.

Horrible Landlord and horrible living conditions!!
Since I moved in there have been nothing but issues and the conditions in the apartment are disgusting, to the point where I have been sick for over 3 weeks.
They do not take any of the issues seriously and respond to serious complaints with a generic email. Save yourself and save your money! DO NOT BOOK WITH VIV HOUSING.

Like basically all other reviews say: if you value your time, money and peace of mind - STAY AWAY FROM THEM!

Let's start with their obvious classic - they do not give you back your deposit.

From all businesses that I have interacted with during the previous 10 years - they are by far the worst.

- Complete lack of any kind of business ethics
- Constantly trying to blur the water and direct you to someone else about any problem (landlord, broker agent, booking platform, municipality office...)
- Never came to fix stuff that was broken
- All possible fraudulent techniques (avoiding answers and delaying replies & playing dumb are their favorites)
- Utter incompetence mixed with straight up lying
- Any agreement you have with them - you can forget about it, they will either try to bypass it, or simply ignore it

Horrible horrible company. Do not ever rent here, they have no regard for their tenants. Multiple complaints (of me and my roommates) were left unanswered. One of my roommates had a health issue regarding her lungs, she complained multiple times about mould in her room and the danger of it to her health, but she never received an answer. She was left to clean it all herself. After renting, I tried to get my full deposit back, but they will not return it. They said there were extra utility costs. After trying to get more info about these “extra costs” they just sent me a vague picture of an Excel sheet that had the most nonsense numbers there could exist. Our house supposedly had 416 euros extra cost in utilities. The funny thing is that all nine of us were gone for two weeks in that month and there was no heating, A/C or any other big energy device. So this was the biggest scam ever, they just make up the numbers to reduce your deposit.

On the day of our checkout, we had initially until 11:00 to check out. Then at 9:40, they messaged that we had to checkout by 10:00 because the workers would arrive at that time. They messaged 20 minutes(!!!) before the "new" checkout time.

Besides, the rooms are very overpriced for what you get. Most rooms of VivHousing don't have any windows, without them mentioning it. They also cram as many people in as little space as possible, they extended this house of 9 people to 11 people and believe me I saw it after, and it was not a situation where you want to live.

This company is not here for the tenants, it is here to make money over the backs of students. Do yourself a favour and find a different company to rent with. It will save you a lot of time, money, and irritation.

For the people that work here: be ashamed for working for such a horrible company that does everything to not help their tenants.

My answer to their answer: It was not well stated if there were windows or not, you had to try to guess it from their images.
I requested 6 times (I checked) their invoice of the supplier but they never gave it to me and in the end just ignored me.

They won't refund my security deposit (€500)
They don't reply to emails and blocked me on WhatsApp

Don't rent from this company!!!!
They are constantly scamming