We rented our house in Cheltenham out for a year with Martin & Co as fully managing agents. Unfortunately, we did not have a good experience. The tenants made many unauthorised alterations both externally and internally to the property. These alterations included drilling into internal and external walls, taking up kitchen floor tiles, putting up shelves in the front garden even though the house is in a conservation area, replacing stone slabs in the garden, removing the washing machine even after they had been told that this was not allowed due to it still being under warranty. The tenants also installed locks on the bathroom windows, but did not leave the keys, so now we cannot open those windows. Martin & Co did not inform us of these alterations, and frankly they did not seem to have noticed them, but instead we discovered them when we were sent photos of the property. We raised concerns several times pointing out that the alterations were unauthorised and that we had no way of knowing to which standard they had been made, but were told that this would all be put right when the tenants moved out and anything that wasn't put right would be taken out of the deposit. In March 2021, we informed Martin & Co that we wanted to give the tenants notice, but were then told that this could be seen as a 'revenge eviction', which is when a landlord evicts a tenant because the tenant has asked for repairs to be made in the house. We had never said no to any repairs which needed doing in the house, so this was simply very strange advice coming from a supposedly reputable letting agent. In fact, the tenants reported a problem with damp on one wall in November 2020, which we said to go ahead with and investigate, but by August 2021, Martin & Co had still not done anything about this. When the tenants moved out, some of the alterations were put right, but many were not. Very little was claimed from the deposit. I was told that we could not claim anything for the stone slabs, because that could be seen as for the 'betterment of the property'. So now we are left with bathroom windows which we can't open, external shelves which shouldn't be there, stone slabs in the garden which don't match in colour etc. We did not feel that Martin & Co represented us, we felt that they were constantly on the side of the tenants. There was no attention to detail, wrong advice was given and on several occasions I was interrupted when speaking to them on the phone. I would not recommend them as letting agents and we have now changed to a different agent.

Phoned and left a message expecting a return call, never got a reply which was disappointing

We let a property through Martin and Co. Would never do so again. Despite problems with the property we didn't create a fuss and made the best of it. On leaving we left the property spotless but were charged for several hours of cleaning including cleaning of grout in the bathroom shower. Sure that was in the contract. But it really amounts to abuse of tennants and profiteering. At one point we were asked to allow the entry of a plumber to inspect the boiler. My wife came home early only to find the plumber in our bedroom, which was odd given the boiler was in the kitchen. The following week I noticed my passport was missing. It never turned up even upon leaving the property 3 months later. Martin and Co were rude and patronising on informing them about the missing passport, they couldn't understand why someone might take a passport. "Identify theft" clearly wasn't something they'd heard of. Disgraceful company. Avoid.

Not happy with the service I’ve received at all. I would not recommended this company to anyone wanting to let or buy a home!

Locals avoid martin and Co.

Not happy with the service I’ve received at all. I would not recommended this company to anyone wanting to let or buy a home!

Very bad experience, don’t recommend anyone

Discussing company judging people over a telephone call stay away and if you remove this it will be posted every day

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