0% sales valuation accuracy
0% sales fee satisfaction
0% lettings valuation accuracy
0% lettings fee satisfaction
Jul 25,2019
Jul 25,2019
30
people found
this helpful
this helpful
From the title of this review I hope you can guess that this is not going to be a celebration of Carter Jonas. When I think of all the things that are wrong in the world words that spring to mind are war, climate change and Carter Jonas. I cannot overstate how awful I think Carter Jonas are. How many words do I have because I could probably write a short story on the topic.
Where to begin. My relationship with Carter Jonas (who I shall refer to going forward as 'the cowboys' because speaking their name is too painful to me now) started when we first rented a new flat in Cambridge. I think in total we ended up paying £400 in agents fees, credit checks, etc. Sadly this is not an uncommon scam that estate agents pull but, in a landlords market, we had little other options. Paying an agent this money so that they type your name into a credit checker and for them to undertake the laborious task of typing your name into a rental agreement is a little bit of a hard pill to swallow but, that is the world renters live in. Having been legitimately robbed we were given our keys and started living in our flat.
Fast forward some months to a Saturday morning in August, my husband and I had been working all week and were looking forward to a relaxing morning in when disaster struck. For no apparent reason the fire alarm in the communal corridor outside of our flat started blaring. This was so loud in our flat we had to shout to speak to one another. Now I love repetitive high pitched shrill noises as much as the next person but, after 30 mins, I was pretty fed up of the alarm.
I called the cowboys. The lady on the end of the line was highly annoyed I had called with such a horrible alarm in the background. She delighted in telling me that because the alarm was in the corridor, it wasn't her remit, it was the 'commercial' team's job to sort this out. She gave me another number which I obediently called. Sadly, I had no joy. I called the same woman back, much to her annoyance. After a lot of huffing and puffing I was basically told we had to sort this out and call and pay for our own electrician. By this time the alarm had been going for two hours and I couldn't remember life without the alarm.
Long story, short(er) we had to sort the issue ourselves. 7/8 hours later, the alarm stopped.
Over the next two and a half years luckily our contact with the cowboys was minimal but we always had a delightful exchange when, every time they wanted us to sign a tenancy agreement we were told to pay £125. To give some context to this, we were told to pay £125 to sign another copy of exactly the same document we had signed a year before, with a slightly different date. I'm no expert but, I would say that's unreasonable. They also tried to increase our rent every year without fail as apparently this was “in line with market rates” which was weird because market rates had actually stagnated at the time. Strange. The good news is that I'm a serial arguer, I love a good challenge and composing an angry email and 80% of the time I resisted these obscene charges but I'm sure other people aren't so awkward and estate agents rob many an unsuspecting tenant of their hard earned cash. It's their bread and butter.
After 2.5 years we came to the end of our tenancy, like I said the flat was brand new at the time we moved in. I don't mean to blow my own trumpet but, my husband and I are bloody good tenants, we have no children or pets, we had a cleaner come in ever week, we even kept the protective plastic on the kitchen units, rent was never late etc. Like all good tenants we paid £250 for an end of tenancy clean and carpet clean. The flat was sparkling after the clean, you could see yourself in every surface. We chose not to use the cleaners that the cowboys had recommended knowing full well that they would likely get some financial gain if we did (the cowboys didn't like this). The condition of the flat was brilliant and I was confident that we would get our deposit back in full. We were moving back to Cornwall from Cambridge so I was very keen to get our “check out appointment” done before we left. Without going into too much detail, the cowboys made every excuse possible to make sure that they did not conduct our check out appointment (did I mention we had to pay another ridiculous amount for the check out appointment) was not held until we were safely far away in Cornwall, even my requests to attend via FaceTime was not granted. I smelt a rat.
Low and behold we got a long email of issues after they had conducted the inspection in our absence. When I say I was surprised to receive this email, I feel I'm not doing the emotion I felt any justice. It was more shock, I think I went into medical shock. Carter Jonas wanted to take nearly £500 of our deposit because they claimed the clean undertaken was inadequate and that we had marked the walls necessitating a repaint. Now, despite what you might conclude from the length of this review, I'm not an irrational person. If we had not paid for an amazing clean to be done or had damaged the flat in any way, I understand that we would have our deposit deducted, that would be fair and reasonable. As this was not the case at all, I felt it was a little unfair that the cowboys told blatant lies to try and cling to as much of our deposit as they could get their greedy, lying, cloven hooves on.
Over the next 6 weeks I fought tooth and nail with them and eventually finally agreed that we would give them £75 for them to conduct their totally unnecessary repaint. I've never felt so angry at being charge £75, I would much rather have taken £75 out of my bank account and ceremoniously burned it than let the cowboys have it but sadly, we needed the rest of our deposit back so we're forced to give the cowboys money for doing absolutely nothing other than being duplicitous snakes. At that point I realised what an amazing business having an estate agency must be. You do essentially nothing, tell a plethora of lies, buy an Audi and drive about and bang, you're rich. Bloody brilliant.
Anyway, to summarise. In case it was not clear. I passionately hate the cowboys, I would never in a million years rent from them or give them a property to rent or sell, and I will literally tell anyone that listens or even if they are not listening I will just talk at them, to spread the word that these agents are money grabbing, unfair, lying, shiny suit wearing, skinny tie buying, con artists.
Where to begin. My relationship with Carter Jonas (who I shall refer to going forward as 'the cowboys' because speaking their name is too painful to me now) started when we first rented a new flat in Cambridge. I think in total we ended up paying £400 in agents fees, credit checks, etc. Sadly this is not an uncommon scam that estate agents pull but, in a landlords market, we had little other options. Paying an agent this money so that they type your name into a credit checker and for them to undertake the laborious task of typing your name into a rental agreement is a little bit of a hard pill to swallow but, that is the world renters live in. Having been legitimately robbed we were given our keys and started living in our flat.
Fast forward some months to a Saturday morning in August, my husband and I had been working all week and were looking forward to a relaxing morning in when disaster struck. For no apparent reason the fire alarm in the communal corridor outside of our flat started blaring. This was so loud in our flat we had to shout to speak to one another. Now I love repetitive high pitched shrill noises as much as the next person but, after 30 mins, I was pretty fed up of the alarm.
I called the cowboys. The lady on the end of the line was highly annoyed I had called with such a horrible alarm in the background. She delighted in telling me that because the alarm was in the corridor, it wasn't her remit, it was the 'commercial' team's job to sort this out. She gave me another number which I obediently called. Sadly, I had no joy. I called the same woman back, much to her annoyance. After a lot of huffing and puffing I was basically told we had to sort this out and call and pay for our own electrician. By this time the alarm had been going for two hours and I couldn't remember life without the alarm.
Long story, short(er) we had to sort the issue ourselves. 7/8 hours later, the alarm stopped.
Over the next two and a half years luckily our contact with the cowboys was minimal but we always had a delightful exchange when, every time they wanted us to sign a tenancy agreement we were told to pay £125. To give some context to this, we were told to pay £125 to sign another copy of exactly the same document we had signed a year before, with a slightly different date. I'm no expert but, I would say that's unreasonable. They also tried to increase our rent every year without fail as apparently this was “in line with market rates” which was weird because market rates had actually stagnated at the time. Strange. The good news is that I'm a serial arguer, I love a good challenge and composing an angry email and 80% of the time I resisted these obscene charges but I'm sure other people aren't so awkward and estate agents rob many an unsuspecting tenant of their hard earned cash. It's their bread and butter.
After 2.5 years we came to the end of our tenancy, like I said the flat was brand new at the time we moved in. I don't mean to blow my own trumpet but, my husband and I are bloody good tenants, we have no children or pets, we had a cleaner come in ever week, we even kept the protective plastic on the kitchen units, rent was never late etc. Like all good tenants we paid £250 for an end of tenancy clean and carpet clean. The flat was sparkling after the clean, you could see yourself in every surface. We chose not to use the cleaners that the cowboys had recommended knowing full well that they would likely get some financial gain if we did (the cowboys didn't like this). The condition of the flat was brilliant and I was confident that we would get our deposit back in full. We were moving back to Cornwall from Cambridge so I was very keen to get our “check out appointment” done before we left. Without going into too much detail, the cowboys made every excuse possible to make sure that they did not conduct our check out appointment (did I mention we had to pay another ridiculous amount for the check out appointment) was not held until we were safely far away in Cornwall, even my requests to attend via FaceTime was not granted. I smelt a rat.
Low and behold we got a long email of issues after they had conducted the inspection in our absence. When I say I was surprised to receive this email, I feel I'm not doing the emotion I felt any justice. It was more shock, I think I went into medical shock. Carter Jonas wanted to take nearly £500 of our deposit because they claimed the clean undertaken was inadequate and that we had marked the walls necessitating a repaint. Now, despite what you might conclude from the length of this review, I'm not an irrational person. If we had not paid for an amazing clean to be done or had damaged the flat in any way, I understand that we would have our deposit deducted, that would be fair and reasonable. As this was not the case at all, I felt it was a little unfair that the cowboys told blatant lies to try and cling to as much of our deposit as they could get their greedy, lying, cloven hooves on.
Over the next 6 weeks I fought tooth and nail with them and eventually finally agreed that we would give them £75 for them to conduct their totally unnecessary repaint. I've never felt so angry at being charge £75, I would much rather have taken £75 out of my bank account and ceremoniously burned it than let the cowboys have it but sadly, we needed the rest of our deposit back so we're forced to give the cowboys money for doing absolutely nothing other than being duplicitous snakes. At that point I realised what an amazing business having an estate agency must be. You do essentially nothing, tell a plethora of lies, buy an Audi and drive about and bang, you're rich. Bloody brilliant.
Anyway, to summarise. In case it was not clear. I passionately hate the cowboys, I would never in a million years rent from them or give them a property to rent or sell, and I will literally tell anyone that listens or even if they are not listening I will just talk at them, to spread the word that these agents are money grabbing, unfair, lying, shiny suit wearing, skinny tie buying, con artists.
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25th Jul 2019
reviewed by 'Lauren'
Opening Hours
Address
Carter Jonas
1 Station Square
Cambridge
Cambridgeshire
CB1 2GA
Performance statistics
| Services | Valuation Accuracy | Fees Satisfaction | Min Price of property reviewed | Max Price of property reviewed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sales | % | 0% | £0 | £0 |
| Lettings | 0% | 0% | £1,080 | £1,080 |
Review statistics
| From Landlords | From Tenants | From Vendors | From Buyers | Other | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Areas covered
Services offered
- Sales
- Lettings
- Block Management
- Surveys
- Conveyancing
- Mortgage Advice
- Home Builder
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Jul 25,2019
Jul 25,2019
30
people found
this helpful
this helpful
From the title of this review I hope you can guess that this is not going to be a celebration of Carter Jonas. When I think of all the things that are wrong in the world words that spring to mind are war, climate change ...
read full review
read full review
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