I experienced an issue with electricity and had to stay without it and gas for half of a day and Elizabeth from Noorthwood did really help me out by trying to call British gas and escalade my case. She even call me back once she got more informations to explain me what I had to do. If it was only for her I would give 5 stars. The rest of the agency seems to not know a lot about there properties unfortunately. Nobody were able to tell me where was my meter box and they failed to let us know about the electricity situation as well. That would be the only down part, other then that, they are really nice when you are calling them, and always answer fast to the emails.

A tenant for several years. Mostly with good correspondence and cooperation with Northwood, with exception of one person on check-out. Had to deal with a "senior" admin whose conduct was unprofessional. Non-stop guilting on her end to get me to part with my deposit, knowing it was a reach. One angry email demanded to know who's responsibility it was to pay the cleaning for "fingerprints on doors". Other ridiculous assertions that insisted on repayment included floor entrance into the unit being visibly worn (the property was lived in for seven years, did they expect me to float into the living room?), a detached carpet that was caused by their maintenance and a "missing curtain" which was photographed on the floor in the same reference it was claimed to be missing. Case escalated to TDS's resolution service who instructed Northwood to receive 10% of the deposit for some cleaning as opposed to the 65% they argued for - at one point I was told "there's no two ways about" paying such an amount. The tone and nature of the admin's emails caused stress. Her final attempt to try and avoid the case escalating claimed I should think about her proposed amount for non-missing curtains and cleaning of fingerprints to avoid "the stress and uncertainty" of going through TDS's resolution service. Mighty glad I did and encourage any tenants in the unfortunate situation of corresponding with the same person to pursue their own case. This person would stop at nothing to get the majority of the deposit to the point of suggesting to avoid TDS's resolution service. She's been with the company a long time and knew the game she was playing. Awful practice on her end and did leave me stressed for weeks. For everyone else I spoke with there, mostly great. Only other disappointment was highlighting a brothel was in operation very close to the unit and a lot of suspect characters come in and out the hallway at night. I argued this in defence of increasing the rent 12% during an annual contract review, claiming it's not that fantastic a place to live as a tenant in fact and could we meet in the middle at 5%? This was completely ignored. Hence what they considered fair game for arguing as means of keeping the deposit, some of it was hilarious. I imagine other letting agents could be worse on balance. But I wouldn't know.

Extremely unprofessional, highly recommend to avoid using this one. They provide misleading information about the property and caused us extreme inconvenience and money loss.

Extremely unprofessional, highly recommend to avoid using this one. They provide misleading information about the property and caused us extreme inconvenience and money loss.

TLDR: Agent misled us on the phone about the property allowing pets, and messed up the time of the viewing which led to wasting around 3-4 hours of our weekend and some more for our family members. I’d rather set a tent up in a nearby park than deal with these people again, at least I know what I’m getting. My partner and I were looking for a pet friendly property in the surrounding areas, and due to the nature of our work we had to get assistance from some family members in calling up agents and confirming whether the properties allowed pets. We found a property we didn’t mind the look of and got one of our family to call up, ask about pets and depending on the answer arrange a viewing. On this call the agent was made aware that we had 2 pets, and promptly and enthusiastically confirmed that pets were allowed in the property and it would not be a problem. They had also mentioned that there was another couple with pets viewing the property so naturally we thought this might be the one. Upon this information we booked a viewing which the agent confirmed was at 1:40 on the weekend and were chuffed with this, however prior to this we received text confirmation that the viewing was at 11:40. Weird, we thought, but then made the plan to arrive in st albans slightly early, go for some breakfast, and then view the property. On the morning of the viewing, we arrived in st albans and on the way to our breakfast spot we got a call from the estate agents. The agent then told us that it was actually 1:40 and that they had made a mistake sending the message in the morning. This naturally annoyed us as we were already in the town at ~10am and had to spend the rest of the day finding things to do. We decided to stick with the viewing time due to the difficulty in finding pet friendly properties, but ended up heading to the property early as we had difficulty in finding things to do without making the plans for that. Upon arriving at the property and to the person’s credit - they allowed us to come in early and were apologetic of the mistake in the scheduling. We viewed the property and it was pretty nice - new, clean and a decent amount of space (although this has nothing to do with the agents themselves). Just before leaving my partner asked the lady who was showing us around to confirm that pets were allowed and as soon as we mentioned that she looked flabbergasted, and gave us the answer that she doesn’t have the information to hand and that we should (again) call the agents to confirm this. We got back in the car and lo and behold - the agent now confirmed that this property was 100% NOT pet friendly. Credit to the lady showing us around in all honesty, but overall an absolute waste of effort, time and unnecessary stress that could have all been avoided if the people in the office were honest with us. Just hope that other couple cancelled before being disappointed like we were.

Time wasters. Agree appointments for viewing and pull out 40 minutes before

Very poor communication with the agent. I was trying to get everything in order before going away but no one would do anything. I was ready to pay and sign everything so that I could enjoy a week off before a stressful move. But that was wishful thinking. As soon as I flew out I was bombarded with emails requesting paperwork to be signed, etc... On top of that I was told the carpet of the new property didn't need professional cleaning as it was new, surprise surprise, the day we moved in we found out not only that the carpet wasn't new but that the previous owner had a cat. The stench was and still is unbearable not to mention my partner is allergic to cats. I now need to fork out more money to change the carpet in a house that is not mine. Very disappointed with this agency, it's been a constant let down from start to finish. I'll never use them again that's for sure.

If you are a landlord who wants to avoid prolonged void period and rent out your property at a reasonable price, this estate agent is definitely not the one for you. They simply don’t care. Unprofessional and inefficient. Avoid at all costs.