"Extremely stressful..."

Extremely stressful experience with Sparks Ellison. They use the same inventory company ‘Hampshire Inventory Services’ to complete the check out inventory as they do to clean the property after you vacate and try for betterment when you leave which estate agents are not allowed to do! After reporting the property as poor for cleanliness the same company then goes into complete the clean at an extremely high rate and then tries to deduct it from your deposit. When you tell them that you’re disputing via TDS they try to emotionally blackmail you. Complete shambles of a company and what seems to be a nice little earner for them and the inventory company they use. Massive conflict of interest and they shouldn’t be getting away with it.

Extremely stressful

Extremely stressful experience with Sparks Ellison. They use the same inventory company ‘Hampshire Inventory Services’ to complete the check out inventory as they do to clean the property after you vacate and try for betterment when you leave which estate agents are not allowed to do! After reporting the property as poor for cleanliness the same company then goes into complete the clean at an extremely high rate and then tries to deduct it from your deposit. When you tell them that you’re disputing via TDS they try to emotionally blackmail you. Complete shambles of a company and what seems to be a nice little earner for them and the inventory company they use. Massive conflict of interest and they shouldn’t be getting away with it.

I’ve never been made to feel more like a second class citizen than I have been by Debbie Darvill, lettings DIRECTOR at Sparks Ellison. First she tried to tell me that on both properties I wanted to look at, the landlords’ mortgage lender prohibited tenants with Universal credit.. (which mortgage lenders have been banned from doing for at least the last 5 years and any mortgages longer than that would have been automatically changed). Surely being a Director of lettings with years and years of experience, she would know that. I challenged this piece of information, only to then be told… “It’s these particular landlords prerogative to immediately discount people with benefits”!!!! Yes, landlords can chose their tenants, but it is against the law to immediately discount someone based on being in receipt of benefits. Again, I find it very bold that someone with such a distinguished career, can openly say that their clients are biased and openly discriminatory!!!!!! I guess Sparks Ellison just have a blanket policy of no benefits….. Next year I will be in a position to buy a property…. NOT FROM SPARKS ELLISON!!!

We have contacted them about the property advertised for letting and response was very rude and unprofessional staring out you request through Rightmove, had no intention to take our details or share her thoughts on availability of the property. Only response she is interested is put your request in the Rightmove for which I have not received any response even after 3 weeks. I have a feeling they are one of the most racist people encountered in this country.

I’ve never left a review before and I’ve hesitated for four months on whether to take the time to do so here, but as the service I received had an impact on my children, I felt it necessary to share the appalling service and lack of humanity I received from Sparks. I intend on making a formal complaint, but if this comment stops one customer using Sparks, it’ll be worth it. Having rented through Sparks for almost two years, I notified them of a temporary change in circumstances earlier this year. My partner and I had separated and I was on maternity leave at the time. As a result I was forced to claim Universal Credit for a very short period of time - something I’ve never needed to do before but fortunately i was entitled too whilst my salary was lower. I notified Sparks of the change in circumstances and within two days I was served an eviction notice under the Housing Act. I have a two year old and at the time, my baby was three months old. I understand there is no legal obligation to provide further detail when an eviction notice is served. However the timing was very coincidental and didn’t sit right. I’ve been a very reliable tent and would have had no issues continuing to pay my rent. I contacted Sparks for some support and advice and the disrespect, lack of empathy and general tone I received from Debbie in lettings left me in tears. I was made to feel like I was an inconvenience (not the first time when liaising during my time letting the property - we’d had many a problem during our time at the property which I will go on to detail further in this review, one of which could have been fatal had I not caught it in time). Debbie even chose to advise me that my landlord had cancer - this is absolutely awful and my heart went out to them - but was completely irrelevant to why I was being evicted - the property was due to be re let and since has been. Another point Debbie chose to highlight during this particular conversation was “if you choose to rent it is up to the landlord if they wish to evict a tenant”. Having worked in property PR prior to my current position, I think I’d be accurate in saying that this generation do not “choose to rent” it’s sadly an implication of being priced out of the current market. The snobbery was all too apparent - please note, not once did Debbie offer to help share details of properties which may have been of interest. Knowing myself and my two small children would soon be homeless. I’ve since gone on to move to a property which is lovely, has had no issues and the landlord was very understanding regarding my temporary circumstances when we first moved in. I’m now back at work again in a career I worked very hard for. I appreciate that the landlord is a client of Sparks, but so was I and the service I received was disgraceful. sparks Since moving, the landlord also tried to take over half of my deposit. I requested proof of receipts from Sparks again and again but these requests were always responded with a passive aggressive email from Debbie. Eventually I disputed this via the TDS - thank goodness for this service as we have luckily won our dispute. Sparks would have happily allowed the landlord to unfairly and wrongfully deduct costs. Whist being five months pregnant, I discovered the fuse box in the property was burning - I’d smelt something and luckily checked it before going to bed. It was a matter of time before it wold have blown. It since came to light that the landlord hadn’t had an accurate check completed before we moved in which led to this felt not being picked up. This is just one of the many issues we endured during our time at the property. The maintenance man actually once said, “we should move in here”. I appreciate Sparks is a business, but they advertise themselves as a “ caring, community organisation” and this is so very untrue. My rent was always on time, I looked after the property well and we were reliable, good tenants - despite all the issues we faced whilst renting this dangerous property. Shame on you Sparks. Utterly appalling service.

Unprofessional, unorganised and rude lettings manager. Extremely hard to get a response from them when there is a problem, big or small. They lost track of the work that had to be carried out at the property I was living in because of their lack of organisation. They promised compensation from the landlord without mentioning this to the landlord. They lied about damage to the property at the end of my tenancy and I am currently going through TDS to resolve this. They refused to speak over the phone when I tried to call regarding issues with damp and leaks which were causing damage to the property, saying that they were too busy and could only deal with emails. They failed to respond to my emails on many occasions. The damage to the property wasn’t the problem. Luckily for the landlord I resolved this through the developers, Alfred Homes who were incredibly helpful. The problem was solely the Lettings staff. We have many friends and family members in the area and I am not the only person I know who has had a disappointing experience with Sparks Ellison. There are fantastic estate agents in Chandlers Ford including Charters, who we have recently purchased our new house from. Charters have been amazing from start to finish. Friendly and professional. I would steer well clear of Sparks Ellison.

I had a very stressful and

I had a very stressful and bad experience with Spark Ellison when renting a house from them. At the beginning everything seems fine until we checked out the house. We were pushed to use their cleaning agent and received very poor service, irresponsible and lack of transparency, poor inventory check out report. I had to raise dispute via TDS to get back my deposit and experienced lots of stress dealing with them.

"I had a very stressful and..."

I had a very stressful and bad experience with Spark Ellison when renting a house from them. At the beginning everything seems fine until we checked out the house. We were pushed to use their cleaning agent and received very poor service, irresponsible and lack of transparency, poor inventory check out report. I had to raise dispute via TDS to get back my deposit and experienced lots of stress dealing with them.

I dealt with a girl called Zoe, I wouldn't trust anything that she told me. I've given 1 star as I couldn't give no stars.NegativeQuality