Thebournemouthvilla Opiniões 9

Keeping it factual: Bad experience, fought for deposit, asked for money back, got ignored, went to court twice, CCJ issued, no payment, enforcement sent in, back to court, got paid compensation plus all costs yesterday.

My experience with Fortis House Villas / The Bournemouth Villa ended in legal action.
I booked Fortis House in Christchurch for a short stay in September 2024 and paid both the £3,000 booking balance and a £750 refundable security deposit in advance.
After the stay ended, the deposit was not returned. I contacted the company multiple times by email and phone requesting the return of the deposit and asking for an explanation, but I received no response.
Because the matter could not be resolved directly, I issued a County Court claim to recover the money. The case went to trial in July 2025, where the court granted a County Court Judgment (CCJ) in my favour.
Despite this court judgment, the money has still not been paid.
In October 2025 bailiffs were instructed to attempt to recover the debt, but unfortunately they were unable to locate the company or recover the funds.
This has been an extremely frustrating and stressful experience. I would strongly advise anyone considering booking with this company to carry out thorough research before transferring money.
All statements in this review are based on my personal experience and documented legal proceedings.

Fortis House (Fortis Villas)

Absolutely disgraceful customer service,
The house was dirty with uncomfortable beds that have seen better days.

The outside bins were over flowing on arrival with rubbish around the property.
The kitchen equipment was limited and the oven trays didn’t fit the oven.

The pool is not heated and full of grit at the bottom. The hot tub isn’t cleaned properly either.

The pool table needs reclothing and needs new cues, the bandit was broke too.

We did an ingoing inventory with photo evidence (time & date stamped) we left the property immaculate, cleaning from top to bottom and left it in far better state than when we found it with video & photo evidence.

Max has avoided replying to emails when requesting our deposit back. This guy is a pure scammer and a criminal.

We have a lot of connections and will be taking this matter to court!

Avoid this property at all costs!

Appalling property, avoid at all costs. Booked for a large family get together and honestly it was grim. Dirty, smelly, dangerous and uncomfortable beds. I’ve stayed in nicer hostels for much less money!

Considering the extortionate sum charged for two nights, the owners should be ashamed of themselves. And then retaining our deposit for months until court proceedings had to be started (which seems to be a bit of a pattern from other reviews) - I honestly would call the owner a criminal.

Accommodation and facilities needed much improvement, generally very tired. It needs new mattresses as all were uncomfortable with the springs being felt. Two of the showers were partially blocked leading to potential flooding and another shower door was permanently jammed open.
The pool table had only one bent cue.
Limited kitchen equipment.
The garden was not appealing and overlooked by someone living in the basement.
We had a great difficulty getting our deposit returned and have only just achieved this following court proceedings.
Not recommended!

Stayed at "Fortis House" after renting through the villa directly. They accused us of breaking the staircase and are now holding the deposit without any evidence. They have tried this same scam before and I have received multiple abusive emails from "Max". When we called him out on his previous scams, he stopped replying. We are now having to start legal proceedings to get the money back. Horrible customer service & I'd advise you to NOT book "Fortis House" or "The Bournemouth Villa". Max seems to own quite a few properties so be careful!
Also, do not be fooled by reviews on booking.com or AirBnB. It seems as though he only scams people who book directly with him as they cannot leave a review on the aforementioned websites. Conveniently, the official review page on their site says "coming soon" but this has been the case since early 2024.

Steer well clear of this property and any others the owner has such as 'Fortis house'.

I had the misfortune of staying at Fortis House a few years ago for a friends stag do and the place was filthy. Food was found behind curtains, the stairs were broken upon arrival (which we were charged for and lost our deposit. Shock).

However, fast forward 2 years and I booked a beautiful huge Italian style mansion for my own stag do. Unbeknown to me at the time, he owned this too. After paying everything up front as per the terms, he then proceeded to simply try and con me and 17 others out of our money, telling us we could no longer stay in this property due to made up “new covid terms” and instead said we had to stay in this dump.

I read online that he had tried this trick with others and when I tried to resolve it amicably I was ignored for months on end, received abusive emails when he did respond, and he ignored every single call I had ever made to him.

For those that were/are in a similar situation to me and can't get their money back, it took a while but I took him to court and obviously won. I urge anyone who is having issues with this man to do the same. He has a history of conning people out of money and a quick google search will show you the type of person you're handing your money over to. Remember these are privately owned property rentals so you have very little protection.

If anyone is still thinking of booking his properties, good luck, you’ll need it!

WARNING DO NOT rent this house and be CAREFUL about any others advertised “fortis villa / fortis house. “
we originally tried to rent another one for the weekend which was fully booked (probably just a lure) so we were led to the Bournemouth villa. We were sceptical, but rented it in the end purely due to our parties head count and worried about places booking up due to covid .
When we arrived the property was in a disgusting state. There was a dangerous broken window , boarded up windows, stained floors , cobwebs, it was unclean, there was an awful smell, sheets were not put on the beds due to “covid” and even some of the sheets provided for us to put on did not fit the beds., there were flies , dust , there was damp the list goes on. The kitchen was tiny for the house and it was not fit for purpose . A private chef confirmed this. There and was no one there during check in for us to speak or do an inventory with.
Luckily we took some time stamped photos just in case and cleaned the place up ready for our guests. A few days after departure we had an email to say we incurred damages for a broken window at £450 and that this will be taken from the credit card on file . I wonder whether this is something that is tried every time by the owner, that they need to carry out “emergency repairs for the next guest”. This is a disgusting claim, this window was clearly something not rectified before our arrival and something the landlord is attempting to blame on us and probably groups before us. I am not sure how they can get away with this but I would just like to warn others before booking - please do not book this house !!!!

I stayed at the Bournemouth villa a while ago with a large group for a stag do and the cost and terrible facilities of it are ABSOLUTELY outrageous. I'm told the reason we stayed here is because no other place had enough beds. We actually had a great time but I felt it was irresponsible not to warn others of this hole.

The website describes the house as being "full of exciting features."
Well, read on if you'd like to hear about them! There was not one single bathroom door with a working lock, if you like to be tense and hold the door shut whilst you take a dump it's the perfect place for you! The "villa" ironically boasts that it "comfortably sleeps up to 33" when the rooms were filthy and smelly, the beds seemingly made of a sacks of pebbles and the pillow practically non existent.

The "exciting" facilities were truly beyond awful. Think you can open the window to let in some fresh air? NOPE, they're ALL painted shut! Pretty sure this is breaking fire regulations... The "plenty of modern facilities" didn't include any access to the wifi as a working password was nowhere to be seen so good luck organising things while you're in the house (I had no data signal there.)

The photos are very misleading, it looks pristine and there's even a photo of tea and coffee in one of the bedrooms! Don't be fooled, this is just a prop for marketing.

All the showers were awful and hot water ran out very quickly. The pipe in the basement bathroom's bath wasn't even attached to the plug so when I attempted to have a shower, the floor immediately started flooding. I had to spend quite some time mopping it up because I'd only noticed after I had shampoo in my hair so I was watching this puddle turn into a pool while some foul stench arose from somewhere. I then had to wash my feet in the sink after my paddle in the dirty water.

Pros: There was a pool table (with a ball missing) a working television, an iron (which immediately became lodged in the faulty dumbwaiter, but we will accept some of the blame for that) and a huge amount of room so if you're just going there to get wrecked, pass out and leave, well, I guess that's the only reason people stay here, but the staggering deposit amount makes you wonder what the owner even does with that money.

Finally, It is absolutely APPALLING anyone can live with themselves by charging this much for such an awful place. I've stayed in hostels for £8 per night that have been better. it was £2600 for everyone for two nights with a £750 deposit that the owner tried their hardest to not give us back. He then has the f&*%king CHEEK to charge us a UTILITY BILL???? With everything together it cost me £75 PER NIGHT.