Michael Anthony

My advice to anyone renting through this company is simple: do not leave a review when they ask you to shortly after moving in. Wait until you have moved out, gone through the checkout process and got your deposit back. I am extremely glad we did. Our first red flag actually came before we even moved in, when we were asked to pay more for the property than the price it had been advertised at. Despite that, Lauren was perfectly nice to us when we moved in and throughout the tenancy. Our boiler wasn't working on the day we moved in and she helped get that sorted. Equally, whenever they needed something from us, we were more than accommodating. Towards the end of the tenancy we allowed days of viewings to help them get new tenants in and generally tried to make everything as easy as possible. Unfortunately, the way we were treated once we moved out and started questioning deductions from our deposit was completely different. I honestly couldn't begin to list all of the petty things that were raised in the checkout report, but some of them were just factually wrong. Things were being used to justify charging us that simply weren't true, and rather than anyone looking at the obvious inconsistencies, it was left to us to challenge everything and provide evidence to prove it. They say the check-in and checkout reports are done by an independent company. I can only speak from our experience, but after seeing how the report was used against us, I have very little confidence in how fair that process actually was. What made the whole thing worse was being told that the landlord had agreed to the deductions they were trying to make. Luckily, we were in the unusual position of having a personal relationship with our landlord and could contact them directly. When we did, we discovered they weren't aware of things in the way they had been presented to us. Once we were able to speak to the landlord ourselves, the situation was resolved and we got our deposit back. That really bothered me because if we hadn't personally known our landlord, how would we ever have known? We could easily have just accepted the charges because we'd been told the landlord had agreed to them. The part I find most unacceptable, though, was what happened when we said we would go through the deposit scheme to resolve the dispute. We were actively discouraged from doing this and told it would be "time consuming and costly." It does not cost a tenant anything to raise a dispute through the deposit scheme. I think that is terrible behaviour from a letting agency. The deposit scheme is there for exactly this reason, so trying to put tenants off using it by making it sound like it could cost them money is completely unacceptable in my opinion. The communication once we started challenging things also became really confrontational and at times felt threatening. That was probably the biggest contrast for me. When we were paying rent, allowing days of viewings or they needed something from us, everything was friendly. As soon as we moved out and questioned deductions from our own money, the attitude completely changed. I have no problem with an agent charging tenants for genuine damage or legitimate issues. What I do have a problem with is being expected to pay for things that aren't accurate, being told the landlord agreed to charges when speaking directly to the landlord gave us a very different picture, and then being discouraged from using the independent deposit scheme when we wouldn't just accept those charges. So again, wait until you have your deposit back before leaving your review. Based on our experience from beginning to end, I absolutely would not recommend this company. There are parts of their approach to pricing, "independent" checkout reports, deposit deductions and particularly how tenants are treated when they challenge them that I think seriously need to be reviewed.