"As a landlord letting..."

As a landlord letting several properties through Northwood I cannot praise the quality of their service too highly. Helen Cameron and all other members of the team I have had dealings with have always been efficient, friendly and professional. Having found suitable tenants for us, Helen and other members of the team, have monitored the tenancies and handled all issues that can arise entirely to our satisfaction. The team have a knack for keeping us informed on matters that need our attention but (as importantly) deflecting and dealing with the day-to-day problems that are important to the tenant. We consider ourselves to be very fortunate to have chosen Helen and the Northwood team to manage our properties.

"I have had a grat..."

I have had a grat relationship with Northwood since first contacting them to arrange my viewing. Emails have all been answered and have a personal touch. Doesn't feel like you are emailing a robot!

Instructed Northwood on a tenant find only basis. Case predominantly handled by Holly who proved to be knowledgeable, efficient and a pleasant person to work with. Telephone messages effectively communicated between the team in Holly's absence, notably Lorna. Unfortunately, the team efficiency is let down somewhat by the tardiness of the accounts department. I don't think it should take 10 days to forward tenant's fees / deposit to my account.

Wouldn't even give one star. Worse I've ever been with and Landlord aswell. Was suppose to be my first home with my partner, what turned into nightmare. Curtains stained when we moved in and moldy which we kindly replaced including lamp … More

Wouldn't even give one star. Worse I've ever been with and Landlord aswell. Was suppose to be my first home with my partner, what turned into nightmare. Curtains stained when we moved in and moldy which we kindly replaced including lamp shades. First day moved in windows didn't even shut properly and it was middle winter. Water pressure Wouldn't get fixed and apparently being good tenants and reporting it just so we could have a shower or boil a kettle, 6 months into tenancy we had to leave as landlord apparently selling? Yet he's moving in to flat for awhile ? I'm sorry that's not selling , so again false info. Father was ill in hopsital which I asked if I could take his two cats into my care. Which was denied and I had to travel every 2 days to see to them, spent 50quid and 75 on renting carpet cleaner , spent 4 hrs cleaning the place only to be told wasn't done to a professional standard ? I'm sorry when we moved in it wasn't. Moldy curtains ? Ripped and moldy curtain in bathroom ? Curry stained and smell lamp shades.?? Crap left by other tenants? Now taking money from our deposit. WORSET EVER. AVOID AT ALL COSTS. will NEVER go with Northwood again.

Warning to all Landlords and Tenants I won’t go into details about their failings as there are so many, however, just to give you an idea, it was things like not paying the “Guaranteed” rent during Covid, quoting us £3300 for a central heating repair and the plumber we sent round fixed it for £120, but the worst part is when we tried to change agents, as they resorted to blackmail and carried out a forced eviction of the tenants against our wishes and despite one of the tenants being treated for Cancer (of which they knew), let me explain more. After taking the final decision to leave Northwood, we employed a new agent to take over the tenants (switch service), however, Northwood had a clause hidden in the contract so they can evict the tenants before handing the property back, which they again explained this would cost me lots of money to move away, hence I should stay with them. I explained this was exactly the reason that I could not stay with them and even if they offered their services for free, I would still leave as their code of conduct was despicable. I explained that the tenants had done nothing wrong to Northwood and they do not deserve to be punished, but they proceeded to evict the tenants out of spite. I spoke to the tenants to warn them of what was happening and the single mother of 3 children explained it was terrible timing as she was currently undergoing chemotherapy for Cancer. I promptly got in touch with Northwood to explain this and that they could not evict them as it was so cruel, but they issued the eviction letter a few days later anyway. I tried to work out with the tenant that they could stay after the eviction notice, but Northwood had this boxed off in their contract also, hence the eviction was carried out. I lost many nights of sleep worrying about the tenant’s eviction and I tried all sorts of options to allow them to stay, but nothing could combat the Northwood contract, even my solicitor explained the contract was extremely unfair as it did not have any reasonable get out clauses, hence there was nothing I could do. So my advice is that you avoid falling into the Northwood trap, as it is literally a trap which will punish both the landlord and tenant should you realise they are not capable of fulfilling a letting service and choose to leave. But more importantly, if a company has staff who are happy to evict a single mother of 3 who is unwell, just out of spite, then even if they were the best letting agent in the world, this totally cruel behaviour should never be rewarded.

I wouldn’t even give Northwood one star as the service here is absolutely awful, especially from the “Director” Katie Cameron. She’s aggressive and when you try and put your point across to her, she accuses you of being threatening so you’re basically dealing with a drama Queen who is so out of her depth it’s unreal. This company, and Katie in particular, lies through their teeth. Our situation was that we were offered the opportunity to buy the property we were renting, by the landlord who we’d gotten to know really well. We’d informed one of the members of staff at Northwood about this in our January inspection. She informed us that we would be contacted by a guy called Matt who would explain the process to both us and the owner of the property but, not to worry because “this kind of thing happens all the time”. It took two months of chasing before we managed to speak to the illusive Matt. When we spoke to him, he assured us as the tenants that we didn’t need to do anything and again, “this happens all the time” and once we’d complete on the property, we’d simply get our deposit back. Fast forward to nearing exchange and completion where Katie gets involved and tries to sabotage our completion by stating that no notice was given by the property owner and that they will be required to pay money to get out of their contract. After speaking with the owner, it turns out they hadn’t signed a renewal contract and once this was pointed out to Katie, she backtracked. We also found out that the property owner had no say as to whether we were able to move into the property - when we applied we were originally turned down because, in Northwood’s words, “the owner decided to go with another applicant”. We had also offered to pay a full 12 months rent up front which again, Northwood told us the owner didn’t want to do that - well that’s funny because we’ve since found out the owner didn’t even know we’d offered to do that. In fact, they didn’t know we’d moved in until someone on the estate had mentioned it to them. When I emailed Katie to complain about her holding up the process, she replied at 11pm accusing me of being threatening and that she has a client list of “700 people” and doesn’t deserve to be spoken to in the way I had. I have zero problem with sharing the email that I had sent to her to prove that I was anything but threatening. I was actually hoping for proactiveness from her and, seeing as she’s a director of the estate agency side of the company - Humphries, a little bit of sympathy to the fact that the house buying process is stressful enough without her causing more issues. Her response was patronising, aggressive and downright unprofessional which is basically her all round attitude. We also complained just in the last week about them letting a contractor into the house without our permission to carry out a gas safety check. They basically said to take it up with their contractor but still haven’t responded to my email asking for their contractors contact details. I’ve wanted to complain to the main Northwood group but, there’s no point in doing this because the branches are franchises, with no central customer service team. I was told that if I wanted to complain about Katie then I would have to send it to Helen Cameron - Katie’s Mum! So don’t ever expect an unbiased approach to your complaint because it’s family run. To summarise - avoid Northwood Chester, and Humphries, like the plague. If you want an honest and straightforward agency that has your best interests at heart, this is not the one as it’s run by a young girl who is out of her depth, overwhelmed and just wants to grab your money. There’s better agencies in the area who deal with clients in a much more professional manner.

If you are tempted to use the Guaranteed Rent Scheme, BEWARE! If I could give zero stars, I would. They gave false information to our tenants and gave false information to us as the landlord. You will not be informed of the current market rent when they offer you a renewal and they will increase the amount they keep back from the tenants' rent, also without bothering to inform you. When asked to clarify the current rent, they gave false information- which is either incompetence or deliberate concealment. When we dropped them, they falsely told the tenants we were selling. Finally we were forced to pay an extortionate fee to take the tenants on ourselves, unless we were prepared for the tenants to be made homeless. The actual management of the property was acceptable but don't expect them to deal honestly or have your interests at heart.

"Warning to all Landlords and..."

We signed up with Northwood on their Guaranteed Rent scheme over 10 years ago when they were a well-run independent company and we were very happy customers. However, Northwood were taken over by the Belvoir Group some years ago and this is when we started to see a decline in performance. Changing agents is no simple task so we put up with this decline for many years but the incompetence and lies reached an unbearable level, so we were forced to move. I won't go into details about their failings as there are so many, however, just to give you an idea, it was things like not paying the “Guaranteed” rent during Covid, quoting us £3300 for a central heating repair and the plumber we sent round fixed it for £120, but the worst part is when we tried to change agents, as they resorted to blackmail and carried out a forced eviction of the tenants against our wishes and despite one of the tenants being treated for Cancer (of which the new), let me explain more. After taking the final decision to leave Northwood, we employed a new agent to take over the tenants (switch service), however, Northwood had a clause hidden in the contract so they can evict the tenants before handing the property back, which they again explained this would cost me lots of money to move away, hence I should stay with them. I explained this was exactly the reason that I could not stay with them and even if they offered their services for free, I would still leave as their code of conduct was despicable. I explained that the tenants had done nothing wrong to Northwood and they do not deserve to be punished, but they proceeded to evict the tenants out of spite. I spoke to the tenants to warn them of what was happening and the single mother of 3 children explained it was terrible timing as she was currently undergoing chemotherapy for Cancer. I promptly got in touch with Northwood to explain this and that they could not evict them as it was so cruel, but they issued the eviction letter a few days later anyway. I tried to work out with the tenant that they could stay after the eviction notice, but Northwood had this boxed off in their contract also, hence the eviction was carried out. I lost many nights of sleep worrying about the tenant's eviction and I tried all sorts of options to allow them to stay, but nothing could combat the Northwood contract, even my solicitor explained the contract was extremely unfair as it did not have any reasonable get out clauses, hence there was nothing I could do. So my advice is that you avoid falling into the Northwood trap, as it is literally a trap which will punish both the landlord and tenant should you realise they are not capable of fulfilling a letting service and choose to leave. But more importantly, if a company has staff who are happy to evict a single mother of 3 who is unwell, just out of spite, then even if they were the best letting agent in the world, this totally cruel behaviour should never be rewarded.