“Overall, whilst renting, I think we had a fairly standard ......”
1 Star Review
Jun 25,2017
By:
'TW'
Jun 25,2017
Branch: Tunbridge Wells, 1 Vale Road
Services: Lettings (as a Tenant)
Rent PCM: £1000
Would you recommend?: No
Postcode: TN4
Branch: Tunbridge Wells, 1 Vale Road
Lettings (as a Tenant)
Rent PCM: £1000
Postcode: TN4
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Overall, whilst renting, I think we had a fairly standard experience.
When we were looking to rent, Ashton Burkinshaw came across as quick in correspondence, professional and competent. Their agent fees were steep.
Once in the property, we had no real issues. They were slow to respond to requests, if at all but I think many estate agents are similar.
Once we left the property was when the problems started. The branch lost our deposit return so overall it took over 4 months. In that time, the window for opening a dispute with the deposit protection service had expired. Therefore, we were unable to contend any of the pharcical charges that the landlord was imposing (e.g. £70 for a new socket plate - costs £2 in homebase, £50 of repainting for damp damage in the bathroom - 3 ignored emails from us requesting an extractor fan etc etc etc). In that time we sent many many emails to the TW branch, (and * in particular) which simply went unanswered. In the end I called the local area manager who resolved everything very quickly and was apologetic that we had to pay and were unable to contend the charges, but did not offer to help us do that, given that it was Ashton Burkinshaws fault.
Overall it seems that Ashton Burkinshaw are a highly competent and efficient company when the cash flow is into them (beginning of rental) but totally incompetent and inept- at best, intentionally devious -more reasonably, when the cash flow is the other way at the end of a rental period.
Would not recommend Ashton Burkinshaw at all, and Deborah in the TW office in particular is to be avoided.
I also echo concerns of other raters on different review sites that all the positive reviews of Ashton Burkinshaw were uploaded within an hour of eachother - this seems an unlikely coincidence for independant and impartial reviews.
Comment on agent fees
Seemed steep - will be interesting to see how they fair under the new incoming legislation.
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