100% sales valuation accuracy
100% sales fee satisfaction
100% lettings valuation accuracy
45% lettings fee satisfaction
Nov 10,2022
Nov 10,2022
1
people found
this helpful
this helpful
Please be very careful when you let with this company! Take loads of pictures and videos when you first move in, even for the smallest of stains, scuff marks etc. You will need them!
Me and my partner left the flat we rented for 15 months in a better condition than when we moved in. Back in summer 2021 when we first moved in, we were greeted with a broken toilet seat, broken dining room chair, broken TV aerial, filthy bedroom blind, poorly cleaned carpet (with some dusty belongings from the previous tenants underneath the bed!) and many other smaller issues. Within the first month, we also noticed a couple of major issues including a disgusting and leaking toilet tank and a very loud and irritating noise from the kitchen sink, where it would turn on randomly.
Anyway, a few days after vacating the flat and spending a lot of time cleaning and leaving it in a good state, we received a ridiculous and extremely lacklustre check out report. It claimed we had stolen many items, which were down as 'missing'; in actual fact, the dimwit that did the check out report didn't check in the cupboard properly, as all the listed 'missing' items were at the back of the cupboard. Along with this were countless maintenance and similar issues that we had not caused and were present when we moved in.
The not so helpful Claire asked us to dispute all the items in the check out report that we saw fit to. So we did, indeed we spent over an hour objecting many of the crazy items in the report, just to receive a blunt response to say that there was no need for this and we should have waited until anything is claimed. Thanks Claire, might have been handy to tell us that before!
So we waited, and after a few days, we received a scandalous and sickening email with all the quotes that they wanted us to pay, totalling to £580, way over half of our entire deposit. Naturally, we were appaled and angry so we emailed back to disagree with all of the quotes. Claire was extremely unprofessional in her replies and showed absolutely no empathy or understanding, considering hundreds of pounds were at stake.
Eventually she explained that we needed to send evidence and explanations on why we objecting the charges, so my partner spent hours pulling together evidence in the form of pictures and emails from when we first moved in to form a strong argument against the charges. We heard nothing back for a couple of days so we merely sent an email to ask for confirmation that she'd received it, only to get a rude response back once again.
Fast forward a week and we received updated quotes, totalling to £360. We were happy with the reduction but knew that this was still a way off of what we should be paying. We formulated another reply and explained why we were still objecting the other charges, however we were also very reasonable and accepted a few charges that we could have rightly objected.
Fast forward over 3 weeks, having been originally promised that our claim would have been raised within 2 weeks, we asked for an update. Claire responded, no apology of course, that she'd been off for a week and was going to do it in the next few days. Very poor how no one else at House and Sons could have raised this in her absence.
A day later, she emailed to say that the landlord did not want to wait for TDS to make a decision and voided the cleaning fee that we were objecting, meaning that it was agreed that a total of £205 would be deducted from our deposit. This is quite a long way off the original £580 and we could settle for the reduced amount.
The following week, we received most, but not the full amount of our deposit. Funnily enough, it was actually the cleaning fee of £155 that was not sent to us. No apology from Claire and she was once again unprofessional and had a go at my partner for emphasising the importance of the matter. We finally received the full amount and the nightmare is over!
Me and my partner left the flat we rented for 15 months in a better condition than when we moved in. Back in summer 2021 when we first moved in, we were greeted with a broken toilet seat, broken dining room chair, broken TV aerial, filthy bedroom blind, poorly cleaned carpet (with some dusty belongings from the previous tenants underneath the bed!) and many other smaller issues. Within the first month, we also noticed a couple of major issues including a disgusting and leaking toilet tank and a very loud and irritating noise from the kitchen sink, where it would turn on randomly.
Anyway, a few days after vacating the flat and spending a lot of time cleaning and leaving it in a good state, we received a ridiculous and extremely lacklustre check out report. It claimed we had stolen many items, which were down as 'missing'; in actual fact, the dimwit that did the check out report didn't check in the cupboard properly, as all the listed 'missing' items were at the back of the cupboard. Along with this were countless maintenance and similar issues that we had not caused and were present when we moved in.
The not so helpful Claire asked us to dispute all the items in the check out report that we saw fit to. So we did, indeed we spent over an hour objecting many of the crazy items in the report, just to receive a blunt response to say that there was no need for this and we should have waited until anything is claimed. Thanks Claire, might have been handy to tell us that before!
So we waited, and after a few days, we received a scandalous and sickening email with all the quotes that they wanted us to pay, totalling to £580, way over half of our entire deposit. Naturally, we were appaled and angry so we emailed back to disagree with all of the quotes. Claire was extremely unprofessional in her replies and showed absolutely no empathy or understanding, considering hundreds of pounds were at stake.
Eventually she explained that we needed to send evidence and explanations on why we objecting the charges, so my partner spent hours pulling together evidence in the form of pictures and emails from when we first moved in to form a strong argument against the charges. We heard nothing back for a couple of days so we merely sent an email to ask for confirmation that she'd received it, only to get a rude response back once again.
Fast forward a week and we received updated quotes, totalling to £360. We were happy with the reduction but knew that this was still a way off of what we should be paying. We formulated another reply and explained why we were still objecting the other charges, however we were also very reasonable and accepted a few charges that we could have rightly objected.
Fast forward over 3 weeks, having been originally promised that our claim would have been raised within 2 weeks, we asked for an update. Claire responded, no apology of course, that she'd been off for a week and was going to do it in the next few days. Very poor how no one else at House and Sons could have raised this in her absence.
A day later, she emailed to say that the landlord did not want to wait for TDS to make a decision and voided the cleaning fee that we were objecting, meaning that it was agreed that a total of £205 would be deducted from our deposit. This is quite a long way off the original £580 and we could settle for the reduced amount.
The following week, we received most, but not the full amount of our deposit. Funnily enough, it was actually the cleaning fee of £155 that was not sent to us. No apology from Claire and she was once again unprofessional and had a go at my partner for emphasising the importance of the matter. We finally received the full amount and the nightmare is over!
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Opening Hours
Address
House & Son
Landsdowne House, Christchurch Road
Bournemouth
Dorset
BH1 3JW
01202 242000
Performance statistics
| Services | Valuation Accuracy | Fees Satisfaction | Min Price of property reviewed | Max Price of property reviewed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sales | 100% | 100% | £95,000 | £240,000 |
| Lettings | 100% | 45% | £625 | £1,000 |
Review statistics
| From Landlords | From Tenants | From Vendors | From Buyers | Other | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
Areas covered
- BH1
- BH11
- BH2
- Bournemouth
- BH3
- Winton
- BH4
- BH5
- BH6
- BH7
- BH8
- BH9
- BH10
Services offered
- Sales
- Lettings
- Block Management
- Surveys
- Conveyancing
- Mortgage Advice
- Home Builder
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Nov 10,2022
Nov 10,2022
1
people found
this helpful
this helpful
Please be very careful when you let with this company! Take loads of pictures and videos when you first move in, even for the smallest of stains, scuff marks etc. You will need them!
Me and my partner left the flat we rented for 15 months ...
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Nov 04,2020
Nov 04,2020
3
people found
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this helpful
Rented a property through H and S and although I have no problem with the actual process, all went smoothly, Ryan Poole asked for a £200 holding deposit which he advised would be deducted off when we paid all of the costs in renting the flat.
...
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Oct 30,2020
Oct 30,2020
3
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I would rate this company zero if that was an option (one star is far too generous!). Over the past 12 year as I have bought two flats in separate blocks which were coincidentally already Managed by House & Son. I have experienced the worst customer service, ...
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Jul 29, 2024
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(1)
Yes I completely agree.. am currently in the middle of a dire mess with Glenda Jackson who is meant to be a SENIOR property manager but has made a catalogue of errors over our roof repairs and amassed thousands of pounds in unnecessary fees with their besties Bennington Green and all totally unnecessarily as all that was required was some remedial roof repairs!!! Complaints procedure to be started! Utterly irresponsible company! Steer clear! ...
Aug 04,2020
Aug 04,2020
3
people found
this helpful
this helpful
If I could give this company a zero I would. The worst block management company ever. Little or no communication. Aggressive attitude towards board members. They have no heart or soul in their work. Unprofessional, untrustworthy, unaccountable and 100% unreliable. DO NOT USE for block management. ...
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Feb 11,2020
Feb 11,2020
0
people found
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this helpful
Sold my flat through House and Son as they let the property for me aswell over a period of years. Excellent service throughout, very efficient, they go above and beyond to sort any problem out.
In particular the sale of the flat. It was a ...
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Sep 03,2019
Sep 03,2019
1
people found
this helpful
this helpful
Our experiences with House & Son have been consistently positive over the past six years, both when we have rented our our flat to others and when we have lived in the flat ourselves. We are also impressed with the overall management of the building....
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Aug 07,2019
Aug 07,2019
4
people found
this helpful
this helpful
If I could give this company 0 stars I would. Absolutely diabolical experience when viewing a property and throughout booking journey. Two of the RUDEST women I have EVER spoken to, I still can't quite get over their lack of customer service.
I registered my details ...
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Oct 31,2018
Oct 31,2018
1
people found
this helpful
this helpful
Ryan Poole was excellent throughout our whole experience. He was professional at all times as well as kind & supportive. Superb customer service. Thank you Ryan...
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Comment on agent fees
Good
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Sep 04,2018
Sep 04,2018
4
people found
this helpful
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Me and my partner rented a 2 bedroom property for 4 years with House and Son and had nothing but problems throughout the tenancy. From staff insulting us by calling us messy and dirty tenants to House and Son leaving us in unabitable conditions twice and them ...
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Comment on agent fees
Expensive and not worth it. Check out fees were charged despite no check in.
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Sep 04, 2018
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Good afternoon, Thank you for your detailed comments regarding your tenancy with House and Son. I have looked through your comments and know the case well, having visited you to inspect the property. The first point to deal with would be the fact that you say there wasn't a check in conducted but then you also say " After moving in, we sent in our updated version of the inventory stating all the issues, signed and dated by both myself and my partner which it was later revealed that House and Son ...
Apr 15,2018
Apr 15,2018
4
people found
this helpful
this helpful
Wow. What a terrible experience we had with this company when checking out!
We lived in the apartment for almost 4 years. We repeatedly complained about damp and mould issues in the flat. Instead of doing anything about it, they sent a regular instructor who blamed ...
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Comment on agent fees
Expensive
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Apr 04,2018
Apr 04,2018
0
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Dealing with House and Son after dealing with larger national estate agent chains was like a breath of fresh air. I had been trying to sell a property in the Eastcliff, Bournemouth with minimal success. Having changed decor/ price the only thing left to do ...
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Comment on agent fees
Competitive
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Nov 01,2017
Nov 01,2017
0
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I have been both a tenant and landlord during my 13 year association with House and Son and have ALWAYS found the staff to be honest, professional, reliable, helpful, fair and courteous and I would have no hesitation in recommending this agency....
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May 12,2017
May 12,2017
4
people found
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this helpful
Do not use this agency! I have had so many problems since renting a flat through this company, every time I have rang up I get the response of we will call you straight back never to hear off them again. When I first moved ...
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Comment on agent fees
Charged me for check in and out fees one of which was £90 which was not carried out properly as they said something was missing which was in one of the cupboards and considering there was only about 10 in the whole property being a small one bedroom flat I find it very appalling.
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May 20, 2017
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Hi Connor, thank you for your review. You were given the email address of the lettings manager, myself and I responded to you via email and agreed to waive the cleaning costs for you as a gesture of goodwill. I also explained that the cost of the salad draw would be higher as we had to pay a contractor to source the item and fit it, so there is always going to be a higher cost involved, although we have kept this cost to a minimum. You emailed me back and agreed to this fact and agreed with us ...
Nov 10,2015
Nov 10,2015
2
people found
this helpful
this helpful
We came for a short term 1 year assignment to bournemouth from India, We were badly looking for the house on the first week of arrival itself. House and Sons staff shown us 3 houses on the same day and helped us to find a good house ...
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Nov 06,2015
Nov 06,2015
1
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this helpful
This is very first time, I am writing review about any service. I am writing this review because I am very much pleased with the service provided by house and sons.
When we had our new baby on August, our landlord decided to sell this ...
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Mar 17,2015
Mar 17,2015
7
people found
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I recently moved my flat, both my old flat and the new flats are letted by House and Sons. In the new flat, cleaning was not done properly. Every where it was very dirty and the carpets were also very dirty. Also lot of stuffs ...
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Last updated at 10:43 AM 06/03/2014 by Nick Richards
