WORST letting agency I've ever used

worst ever!

I would not use this company ever again! I can't begin to tell you... Completely let us down. Full of charm to reel you in and full of empty promises! Smarmy and cocky. In my opinion even one star is too generous but I had to put something.

Below are my experiences when I am dealing with Preston Baker for last 5 months. I brought the house from them in Nov 2017 and let them to FULLY manage it from Day 1. However they FULLY disappointed me in all areas. And charged me around £1500 for doing nothing to maintain the house at all. Based on the reason that the house is not yet tenanted. So it is not yet being managed by Preston Baker, even though I already signed the FULLY management contract with them and passed all the keys and the house to them. Anyway long story in short, here are some points that I believe the general public need to know: To Potential Tenants who are not in a HMO house, i.e. for all those who are renting as family or 2 bed houses: Be ware that Preston Baker will not make sure the electric in the house and sockets and alarms are totally safe when they rent you the house. For example, they will rent you the house with electric socket directly over the stove. They will rent you the house with unsafe furniture. They will rent you the house BEFORE they have gas certificate checks. Apparently , I requested them to get the house gas check before tenant in. They did nothing. I asked and they replied me that they only do so AFTER the house is tenanted. They will NOT demand a safety electric standard because there is no legal requirement for a certificate in England yet. I found a DIY job in the alarm system which was done with some car parts and with copper wire fully exposed. And find out that the house is not earthed. And electric wire fully exposed behind the oven. But please remind that the house was fully managed by Preston Baker all those years before I purchased it from the vendor. So these sorts of dangerous things should not be happening at the first place. These can cause the lives of the tenants. To BTL Landlords: Be sure you stay away from Preston Baker. I am a portfolio landlord with IG. Honestly I made a huge mistake to try another agent this time. Preston Baker charged me £1048.61 for half jobs done. For example, use flooring vinyl tiles and tell you that they are using laminates. Repair a rotten foot steps just by putting a plastic on top without support. Charged you for removing a useful wall mounted book shelve that you have not request them to do. Remove one third of the house waste and left two bag of real dog poo and two containers full of rubbish and moldy items and more than 10 years old fire extinguishers in the house, full size old carpet, two old hoovers and tins and tins of paints in the cupboard plus piles of letters; and obviously charged you for it. Being requested to find leaking problem under the shower tray and surrounding area. But only half fix one out of three leaking places in the bathroom. Furthermore for the soil stack , charged me £192.35. Interestingly , they double charged me in the invoice and my card as £384.70. And the manager Ashley told me that 'I Overpaid them'. This is a joke. They not admit they overcharge but instead, it is the customer over paid. My house is in a prime location, but cannot be rented out for months. So I curious and when to ask for the key to check whats going on. You know what? They just hand me the key without checking my ID or ask who I am ! Therefore your house is not safe under their supervision. They will just hand the key to anyone who come by the door. And again interestingly, the Preston Baker girl replied to the manager Ashley that she knows who I am. However , I never done any business or introduce or talk to her before. How can I be known? Anyway there are even more to tell, but I cannot type that much in a review. Please, to all landlords, stay away from this agent. or to go to Trustpilot to read the rest I will bring these issues later on when I got time to they head office to let their boss Ian Preston and James Baker know about what their staff are actually doing and how they disappointed the customers. At this moment, I just put my experiences here to tell you all what I came across and hopefully can be helpful to all of you.

Worst agency ever

Worst letting agency in York. Not much to say, we called on Friday and arranged a view for the next Wednesday. On Tuesday we call to confirm the time and everything was fine. When we showed up at the house no one was there. After calling them they told us the the house was gone on Monday. Really unprofessional staff. Would not recommend.

Preston Baker were almost adequate. Sales negotiators were not punctual for any on-site meeting Follow up team usually late with comments and did not push the sale forward fast enough

Don’t waste your money on Preston Baker over and Online Estate agent! They did 1 of 11 viewing at my property, the Launch event was a flop and the eventually buyers had to knock on my door and call me to put in and offer as they were unable to get a response from Preston Baker. Sales progression was no better and had no contact made on the day of completion or since. Don’t waste money, do it with an online Estate Agent and pay for a good photographer to take the pictures.

I would rather sleep on the streets than using the agency I tried to get a viewing for a property, I was offered a time slot that meant I had to change my work shift. I did that. A day before they call me to change for afternoon, which I couldn't. On the day of the viewing, the agent comes, but wrong keys.... We couldn't get in. Again, when I said I can't change the shift she called some colleagues and found one willing to come in on Easter Sunday morning. Helen, the lady that came on Sunday is a real asset to any company, not everybody would have done that. There was an offer under the asking price (or so I heard). We decided to put an offer in and since I don't like haggling, I actually offered a little more than the asking price, thinking that the agent has to take it to the seller. Why am I getting a call the next day being asked " before I take the offer to the seller, is that your top offer?" It was not an auction sale, already had a bad feeling about this. Who's to say the same call was not placed to the other interested party and the sale price driven up? Anyway, it just shows that some would look at you as a number... No feelings or ethics. I still don't understand why was I called since I put an offer in that was above asking price... Call received after posting. Doesn't change anything really, the listing said nothing about a deadline for offers, which would have justified the call I received BEFORE the offer was even relayed to the seller. I can understand seller wanting more, but in that case the call would have been made after. Anyway, I guess as a seller you may want to use P&B. As a buyer, I would think twice. Next time I will make an offer it will be time bound, available for no more than 12 hours, just so that my offer would be considered on it's own merit. 2 weeks later The flat is still on sale, at the initial price; I guess my moneyor my accent was not good enough or the seller was not aware of the offer. PPS It turns out they are not regulated by Ombudsman...