Here’s all the drama surrounding ‘Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back’ and CPS Homes

CPS have released a statement justifying their actions


The episode of ‘Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back’ featuring CPS Homes aired on Friday, and it did not disappoint.

In the show, Joe Lycett and Jamie Laing took to the streets of our beloved Cathays to help expose the unjust treatment of students by letting agents such as CPS Homes.

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He highlighted how students are ripped off by landlords and letting agents, who take money out of their deposits for damages which are never repaired.

The segment sees an attempted interview with CPS owner Barrie James, who ignored all questions posed to him by Lycett. As a result, Joe Lycett and Jamie Laing hosted “the UK’s first ever consumer rights rave” outside CPS, playing music which aimed to educate students on their rights.

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The rave was held outside CPS in January

In the show, Lycett is joined by USW student Lizzie, who had a huge portion of her deposit removed for damages such as stains and blue tack marks, which were never repaired for tenants who took on the property after her.

Lizzie told The Tab Cardiff that they were approached by the show after leaving a “very descriptive negative review on Trustpilot.”

“Once they find some good stories to look into, they do some research, digging, talk to people and see which ones are going to make the best programme and if they can even win the case!”

“They liked the story, found enough dirt on the company and from there we got picked to be the story line! I’m not sure why Lucy and I were chosen over anyone else. I think it might have had something to do with our landlord being the sister of the CEO and that made it more scandalous.”

Lizzie went on to describe how she’d been in a legal battle with CPS for 5 months before they were approached by the show, and that turning “such a sad and angry feeling into something so happy and exciting was just fantastic.”

“To see social media erupt at CPS now is extremely gratifying, knowing they’re getting the bad press they deserve for how awful they are.”

“To have someone fight on your side against the people taking advantage of you was great.”

In spite of it being a rewarding experience, Lizzie doesn’t feel CPS will change:
“They haven’t apologised, they’ve deleted any comments on their social media that are negative towards them , they removed their statement on Twitter because people were commenting negatively on it, they also report any negative Trustpilot reviews so they do not feature on the site.”

Lizzie believes that “they’re trying to get rid of the evidence and hope it blows over”.

Lucy (left) and Lizzie (right) with Joe Lycett

Many students, however, were left torn as to whether the show went far enough to expose CPS and their maltreatment of students. When asked if CPS got what they deserved, Sophie, a third year student at Cardiff Uni, said: “No [CPS] deserved worse that that tbh.” On the other hand, Cerys, also a third year at Cardiff Uni, believes that the show made CPS “look like absolute mugs.”

CPS has also faced a huge backlash on social media, with fans of the show taking to Twitter to voice their disgust.

On Friday, before the show was even aired, Barrie James released a statement on the CPS website justifying the issues brought up in the show:

“It is fair to say that the summer of 2019 was a difficult one for us, and one from which we have learned a great deal. Communication and our response times should have been much better.”

He goes on to say that the “system has now been changed”, and that students will now have “greater opportunity to put right themselves any damage that goes beyond ‘reasonable wear and tear’.”

Despite this, he adds that “the Covid-19 pandemic will present its own challenges” for summer 2020.

You can read the full statement here.

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