My wife and I have travelled to the Algarve for 36 years, we have always used VRBO and never had a problem, we booked Villa Jasmim as anyone would based on the images back in January 2022 for my wife’s birthday treat , when we got to the property it was nothing like the pictures , it was a white property not yellow, the drive way was damaged, the outside seating was different to the pictures and the cushions were ripped/totally shredded and some of the chairs were broken, the Villa itself was dangerous/unsafe (loose wires/ broken flooring) not clean (bathrooms were disgusting with limescale and unclean taps and showers), smelt musty , there were damage to curtains (totally ripped the whole length), paint spilled on some, it was not the Villa we had seen in the pictures, the swimming pool had cracks all around it (unsafe again), the floor was dirty it was filthy (someone came after our complaint to jet wash so you could see the dirt ), we had to stay one night due to arriving at the Villa late and not having time to change it, we asked the Villa company to find us another Villa they didn’t have one so we spent day 2 of our MAIN holiday this year and our return to portugal after the pandemic trying to find another one not getting to start our holiday. Luckily we did manage to find one but at considerable cost to us for a short notice booking. We moved out of Villa Jasmim letting the management company Algarve holidays/Seashell of our intention, we also wrote a formal letter of complaint (with legal advice) to get a refund for time wasted and false advertisement of the Villa to be met with a threatening email back offering 50% of the value of the property if we didn’t “go legal” and accepted it immediately or they’d stop the offer. We declined and have since raised a dispute claim with our bank and intend to follow that up with legal proceedings if needed. I would definitely not recommend the price of the Villa based on what it looks like now, the same images are being used / provided by Seashell for another known site to and no where does it state the condition of the property. As mentioned we have been coming here for a number of years and not had this experience before, we have spent most of the rest of our holiday (returning to the algarve after 2 years away due to the pandemic) completing documentation for the bank!! In all we have spent almost 5k euros on this holiday NOT something we were expecting to have to do.
