WORST letting agent I have ever used! We've seen the positive reviews about Kirsty, she sped things up slightly for us but was only with the company approx 6 months and has now left! They even have 5 star reviews posted on their Facebook page left by their own members of staff!!! Poor customer service, poor communication, slow at resolving maintenance issues, high turnover of staff resulting in us not even knowing who our Property Manager was at times and never being notified when ours left and another would be put in charge of our property. We're not the first people who felt that all they care about is taking your money and have no care for their tenants. They delayed our referencing process due to poor training of holiday cover staff, taking approx 3 weeks for referencing which caused us huge amounts of stress and worry. Upon entering their office we were greeted by someone who didn't know what to do when a new tenant arrives with referencing forms. Then we were handed to someone else who didn't know what they were doing either, telling us that the type of photo i.d. we were providing was not acceptable even though it was on their list of acceptable i.d., and printed on the form we were handing in. They eventually accepted it but then failed to ask for the second form of i.d. which was also mentioned on the form we were handing in. They gave us a faulty front door key, provided an inventory so inaccurate it was hard to believe they had ever set foot in the property (even claiming that a room with 1 window had 2!), they claimed it had been professionally cleaned yet it was filthy everywhere including stains in the toilet and hair in the bath plughole, the “professionally cleaned” carpets were so dirty that we changed the water in our carpet cleaner 5 times to clean 1 room, they listed discolouration on bedroom ceilings in the inventory without thinking to find out what was causing them (they were water stains caused by leaks as roof tiles needed replacing) and a formal complaint resulted in them refunding our admin fees and admitting they had issues with staff training which they claimed they would look into. The kitchen sink leaked, both reception room doors didn't close, 2 windows didn't lock, none of the bolts on the doors worked, a kitchen socket didn't work, the fridge freezer they claimed was clean and in fair condition was filthy, mouldy, rusty and falling apart and had missing and broken drawers, they said they would mow the lawn and cut back an overgrown shrub and listed it in the inventory as having been done when neither had been touched and we had to do it ourselves, and the back gate was missing – it had been broken and left in the garden when previous tenants were living in the property, the neighbours said because of this people entered the garden and the house was broken into, and despite having more than enough time to fix the problem they left us without a back gate for the first week of our tenancy (and with broken glass all over the patio which appeared to be from the break in from months beforehand). Every single maintenance issue reported was not carried out before them contacting the landlord for permission which caused delays, possibly by the landlord being unavailable and not getting back to them, but they also don't appear to chase anything up as for every issue we reported we had to chase them to find out what was happening only to be told they would then chase up the landlord/contractor etc. Their head of maintenance said the damp in our basement had been there the whole 15 years of them renting out the property and was probably just ground water, and despite us saying that it appeared to have some connection with the toilet flushing it was just left and brushed off with the “ground water” claims – only for it to worsen and for evidence to be found that it was coming from the toilet, resulting in a large and expensive job of replacing damaged pipes under the house, the damp also causing the bathroom tiles to lift. Our then property manager e-mailed us to ask if a date set for the work was convenient but as I was heavily pregnant and in early labour we missed the e-mail and found work had started whilst we were visiting our baby in hospital as she hadn't thought to pick up the phone and call us to check. Their head of maintenance also admitted that on one job the measurements needed had been lost TWICE and were then being taken a third time, obviously causing a delay to the work being carried out. We had a query regarding the garden wall falling apart and leaning badly which we were concerned may be unsafe, but as they left it with the landlord (who clearly knew it would be expensive and said he wasn't sure who the wall belonged to) we were then having to chase it up with them, each time they then said they would chase the landlord, giving the impression that they were only chasing him when we chased them – and that issue was never resolved in the 2 years we rented the property. Currently the staff listed on their website are mostly new, having joined last year or this year, and with their high turnover of staff it will be interesting to see how long they stay. More than once we had e-mailed our property manager only to receive an automated response letting us know they no longer worked for the company, and for a while our contact was the general manager as we hadn't been allocated a property manager. He told us the issues with communication and customer service would improve going forward but they never did. The only time they ever acted quickly was when we let them know of our intention to move out! All other letting agents we have used have let you move out, clean up and hand keys back before marketing the property, but Alex Clark are so money driven that they put the property on the market immediately, before we'd even handed in our official written notice to leave, and without warning had a “To Let” sign put up before it was handed in as well. This was an inconvenience, made worse by the fact that their staff then tried to let themselves in with their set of keys for a viewing when we were in the house with our children, arriving earlier than stated, and then giving us just 10 minutes notice of an additional viewing that they hadn't bothered to tell us about when they booked it. It got worse still when they then felt that as long as they sent us texts and e-mails that they could book viewings with only a few hours notice too, breaking their own “24 hour notice” policy. When we thought the problems were over after returning our keys, they then decided our thorough cleaning job wasn't enough and charged us £55 to clean a few minor items (claiming they were now dirty but were listed as clean on the inventory) and of these items they included 2 light fittings that were dusty (no mention of their state of cleanliness on the inventory) and the toilet which was in fact filthy when we moved in, noted as filthy in our notes on the inventory we handed back to them at the start of the tenancy, and the “dirt” was in fact a Toilet Duck Gel Disc freshener! Then they charged compensation for drilled holes that had been filled and patched up despite the property having been far worse at the start of the tenancy. They obviously haven't kept a good record of things in the past as we told them it had been agreed with the landlord that if we painted rooms we wouldn't have to paint them back upon leaving (as the state of decoration was poor at the start of the tenancy and the landlord wasn't willing to re-paint before we moved in), yet they claimed there was no record of this, or that we had gained permission to paint the rooms – that would be the fault of our initial property manager who never did a good job then as we asked her and she said it was all agreed. But it's just easier for them to blame their tenants, especially as they were already aware that we were appalled by their service. After being told they had asked the deposit scheme to release our deposit less the money they were stealing from us, they said it would take 5 working days for the money to come back, and immediately we prepared ourselves for that not happening – which it of course didn't. They use an insurance based scheme in which the scheme protects the funds but doesn't physically hold them, the scheme's website stated the letting agents held the money and would have to pay it back and just update the information held with the scheme – yet they claimed they were waiting for the funds to be released and were on the phone to the scheme to ask why they hadn't done it?! Everyone we have spoken to about our terrible experience with Alex Clark have either had a bad experience with them themselves or knows someone else who has.