I really don't like to complain, and I don't want to rate just one star or 2 because I am at the end so happy I have got this flat!! The good thing was I've never had any issues with the flat so I didn't have to much to ask from the agency so I cannot say they are good or bad at customer service as I didn't have too much to communicate with them. Those I spoke to were nice and polite. Fiona in particular was really nice, she was the one who showed me the flat and processed my application. A lovely person. Stuart was also nice and released my deposit very quickly. But I feel I also have to say the negatives: 1. When I moved into the flat the intercom was not working and I was told it would be fixed. 1 year and a half after and the intercom was not fixed. 2. I have had several times when I was sleeping and I woke up with someone in the house. Apparently there were gas engineers and someone to change the smoking alarm who were given a master key to enter the property but who didn't bother to knock the door. I am a light sleeper and always hear when somebody knocks the door so it wasn't that I was sleeping like a log and I couldn't hear them knocking. I heard when they turned the key to open the door and when they came inside and I was in my pyjamas, imagine how awkward. One time a lady from the agency phoned me after the gas engineer came into the house like that and she apologised that they had forgotten to mention that the gas engineer would come and do the routine inspection to the boiler. Not very nice to be invaded like that. Has never happened before with private landlords. 3. Apart from sending us notification letters with them undertaking routine inspections every 3 months, I have had almost no communication with them for 1 year and a half. Initially we have signed a contract with them for 1 year. 2 months before the end of the lease they phoned asking if I wished to extend the lease for another 6 months which I was more than happy to do because I really liked the flat and I didn't want to move out. HOWEVER they have never ever mentioned the owner WAS SELLING THE FLAT!!! No mention of that. Well after that no communication at all with Northwood. After a few months they emailed me telling me the owners would come and measure up the windows. Nothing more. Well the owners came and asked us where we would go next, what our plans were. We were kind of astonished..looking at the owners not knowing what they were talking about... .Eventually they told us: "Well we are selling the flat, did the agency not tell you that?" Well...no, they didn't. That was the most awkward moment. The owners were lovely people, I liked the flat so much that I decided to buy it. Towards the end of completion of purchase I have found out that Northwood actually wished to CHARGE THE SELLER a percentage from the selling price because "THEY INTRODUCED THE OWNER TO ME". What a joke. So they have HIDDEN from me the fact that the owners wanted to sell the flat (they were aware of that when they asked me to extend the lease for another 6 months), made me just extend the lease (it would have probably been more difficult to find a tenant for just 6 months) and gave me and my boyfriend I was sharing the flat with a notice to REMOVE ourselves FROM THE PROPERTY one week before Christmas...that's when the letter of "REMOVAL" came. Our lease would have ended on the 4th of February and they sent us that letter before Xmas. Again without mentioning anything about owners selling the flat. I was already in process of purchasing it but imagine if the owners had never come to measure windows. We would have found out one week before Xmas that we had to evacuate the flat at the beginning of February. I would have never had the chance to buy the flat if I hadn't met the owners. It was just my luck I met them. And they want PERCENTAGE from the selling price. Fair enough if they had told us about owners selling the flat, they would have deserved the money but they haven't so beware what you sign as they will not help you sell but only charge you.
13 Comely Bank Rd, Edinburgh, EH4 1DR, UK