For anyone renting out their property with John Shepherd please be aware of their no deposit scheme as they charge you extra fees upon moving out. They added an unlawful professional cleaning charge against me on the tenacy agreement which contradicts the tenant act 2019 as these changes are prohibited. To dispute £320 charge you have to pay £260 before proceeding to their adjudicator. Please be careful if you are with them so you won’t end up in a situation like mine. Please be aware they are not professional in their Derby branch

By far in a way the worst estate agent I have ever rented through. 1. They forgot about the viewing I had booked, so they had to divert someone who turned up 45 mins late. 2. They only gave us 1 key for a 2 bed flat and told us to get any others cut, I’ve never had this happen with other estate agents. 3. They don’t hold spare keys so the only time I’ve ever lost my keys in my 8 years of renting, they couldn’t get me into the flat. 4. They tried to charge me something like £350 to add someone onto the tenancy, when the amount written in law appears to be much less. 5. Despite getting the flat through a representative from their Nottingham office, they didn’t tell us to post the keys into their Burton office which led to them attempting to charge us a late hand in fee when we handed them in to the Nottingham office. 6. We have had at least 3 different employees managing our flat over the course of ~a year as they all seem to keep leaving. 7. Upon ending the tenancy, they charged something like £100 to polish a bathroom tap and a lot more for fair wear and tear. This is a warning to avoid John Shepherd.

First time buyer of an apartment and having had the displeasure of dealing with John Shepherds as the estate agent for the property. The agent assigned to liase with the apartment was not helpful and barely knew anything about the property. In addition, alot of what was agreed before moving in had not been done. To make matters worse, they claim some of the agreed works had been done but I have proof that either nothing had been done or was done poorly. I mean, how hard is it to replace 4 light bulbs... The unprofessionalism of the agents involved has left a very sour taste in my experience on the property ladder. Should you have the option, go elsewhere.

Worse estate agents by a country mile. Be warned, STAY AWAY!

Avoid these guys at all costs. Well known in my building for scamming people out of money at the end of tenancy and they did the same to me. AVOID

UPDATE IM STILL WAITING FOR REPAIRS! ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING UPDATE- STILL AWAITONG REPAIRS 14 MONTHS LATER. Still waiting for repairs i reported in October, happy to contact me when they put my rent up but won't fix any problems, disgusting. Attached other reviews to show how incompetent they are

If you're considering renting a flat with them, I strongly advise against it. My experience with John Shepherd was frustrating. They consistently neglected maintenance requests and often failed to respond to my emails. I reached out numerous times to my property manager, Ashley Bignel, but received no replies. When my toilet broke, it took two weeks for them to address the issue after i reported like 10 times. After I moved out, they attempted to deduct my deposit for repairs on items that had already been broken before my tenancy. I urge you to reconsider and explore other options instead of renting from this company.

*DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE* I lived in Nottingham for 5 years, between 2020 and 2025, due to university and work commitments. Each year, I was in a new shared accommodation under a new letting agent. In my final year in Nottingham, I lived in a shared house in the centre which was managed by John Shepherd. It was absolutely the worst experience I've had with a letting agent, and it's not even close - and I don't even know where to start with the issues. When we initially moved in, we didn't have floorboards for well over a month. The "cleaners" who were present when we moved in advised us that the sofas were broken, and then proceeded to leave the house in a state. Over the year-long tenancy, we had issues with sinks not working, windows not closing properly during winter which lead to us freezing and getting ill, and other niggling issues which didn't get fixed for the entire tenancy, despite us raising these issues consistently over the course of the tenancy. I recall one afternoon when I was working from home, the landlord arrived in a Land Rover which couldn't physically fit on the driveway for an inspection of the property. I explained the issues we were facing, to which he responded with "I'll get round to it" with a cheeky smile, and promptly left. To my knowledge, these issues have still not been fixed. To add the cherry on the cake, they tried to change the locks of the property whilst we were still living there. I happened to be working from home one day when I heard maintenance men enter the property (this often happened with absolutely zero notice, when we are legally required 24 hours notice). I came out of my room to ask what was going on, and they explained they were there to change the locks of the property. If I didn't happen to be home, then me and all of my housemates would've been locked out with no way in. Furthermore, they are also impossible to contact. It got to a stage where we would be redirected to another number, and then we would receive no answer whatsoever. We would send SEVERAL phone calls & emails in reference to issues we had with the property. When we finally got to the end of the tenancy, we tried to claim our £1,000 deposit back - which John Shepherd tried to claim 70% of for "damages". We obviously disputed this, and it ended up going to a third-party adjudicator. We managed to get a lot of this returned back to us. They tried to charge us for "bin removal" and "damages" but the adjudicator found no sign of this. We didn't get the whole deposit back as were charged for items such as "dust on bedroom furniture" and "water marks in the sink"... make of that what you will. Oh, and we only got our deposit decision today - around 4 months after we moved out. I implore you - please go with literally any of the other hundreds of letting agents available in Nottingham to save yourself the headache.

My experience with John Shepherd has been extremely stressful and disappointing. Their conduct throughout my tenancy and after moving out was consistently unprofessional and at times dismissive of my rights and concerns and I would honestly give negative stars if I could. I have never had the displeasure of dealing with such an incredibly rude and incompetent group of people in my life. During my tenancy, I raised multiple issues about my electricity billing after discovering that my personal details had been passed to a third-party billing company, Homebox, without my consent. This led to serious financial difficulties and a large, unjustified debt. When I approached my property manager, Freya Jones, to ask what could be done and whether the landlord or the agency could intervene, I was met with an unhelpful and dismissive response. Rather than acknowledging the seriousness of what had happened, she asked me what I expected the landlord to do about it. This lack of accountability was unacceptable and showed no regard for the situation I had been placed in through no fault of my own. I also experienced a complete lack of respect for my privacy. On one occasion, another agent, Katie, entered my apartment for a viewing without prior notice or my consent and brought a stranger inside while I was still living there. When I asked her to wait a few minutes so I could prepare the flat, she told me she did not have the time. This behaviour was unprofessional, invasive, and deeply inappropriate. Throughout all this, John Shepherd failed to provide photographic evidence of meter readings for over a year, even though I repeatedly asked for them to verify my energy usage. In addition, they attempted to apply reletting and additional fees that were not stated in my tenancy agreement. When I presented proof that these charges were not valid, the property manager changed her position rather than admitting the mistake. The handling of my deposit was equally poor, with unjustified deductions and no transparent breakdown of costs. They literally mentioned that the cost to change four burnt out lightbulbs was 64 pounds??? I had to clean off my glasses to make sure I read that correctly. Just a bunch of bloody scammers! They even charged money to remove just one onion I had forgot to take out of my cupboard before leaving. I have never seen such money hungry greedy people in my life. Overall, my experience with John Shepherd has shown a serious lack of professionalism, transparency, and respect for tenants. I would strongly advise anyone, particularly international tenants, to think very carefully before renting through this agency.

The photos attached are the condition the property was in upon moving into. Our tenancy started in August with uni-2, a branch of John Shepherd. Aarti Sharma, our property manager, which has refused to respond to any email since beginning of September, used exceedingly inappropriate language during our meeting on the condition of the property. During this meeting she shouted at us to ‘shut up and leave the property’ after raising our concerns, despite keeping composed in the meeting, which took place 2 weeks after unresponded to emails and phone calls. A witness from the council also attended this meeting and saw the shocking state we were treated in. After stating we would be taking this to the property ombudsman due to no cooperation regarding contract termination in unsafe living conditions and contract breach, we were connected with Chris Blick, a senior at John Shepard, as this followed the complaints process. He stated that due to being understaffed - which is not our responsibility as tenants - there’s been complications with the house. He then promised both bins and a damp specialist to attend due to the inhabitable living conditions. Neither has occurred since that email was provided early October. There’s also been no communication from Chris despite multiple emails and phone calls to the office which stated ‘he would call back.’ We’ve now had accumulation of bins in a five bedroom house for over a month, aswell as sickness of immunocompromised house members from the damp which has been reciprocated to Chris yet dismissed. They have also not responded to emails requesting landlord details within 21 days, which is a criminal offence. Do not book with John Shepard, especially as a student, as they will take advantage of your living situation.