butters john bee - Estate and Letting Agents Hanley Reviews 

Appreciate the valuable assistance provided by Abigail Griffiths and Max Astley in making our move to our new home in Stoke a pleasant experience. We are grateful for professional and prompt response to all our queries and that they cared for our expectations as customer. Thank you.

Lleyton was brilliant from start to finsh. He found a suitable property for us, got us in to view very quickly, and answered all of our questions.

Worst agency ever, they are stealing your money, ignoring the messages and calls, as a landlord I don’t recommend this agency and will never use it again, EXTREMELY UNPROFESSIONAL.

Was a tenant for an extremely long time. Service has been poor all the way through. Their values are more for the landlord than looking after the tenant. Landlord a completely unreasonable. No maintainance done on the property. Same carpets and bathroom and kitchen after 17 years and is now refusing my deposit. Absolute joke. Just a money grabber he doesn't care about his tenants. He wouldn't allow us to make adaptions for my husband with MND we have suffered for the last 2 years since his diagnosis where my husband has not been able to go and use the upstairs bathroom because he is wheelchair bound. And had no way of getting him up there its an abuse of himan rights. Absolutely disgusting. I won't name them because I am not going to be held for slander. No compassion or empathy what's so ever. To say im angry is an understatement.

To whom it may concern, I wish to recognise the professionalism of Megan Pugh in managing the letting requirements a new tenancy for an apartment owned by me in Leek, Staffordshire. Megan's commitment and methodical approach was evident from the outset and her efforts provided me a level of confidence that matters were being handled in a meaningful and effective manner. I would have no hesitation in recommending Megan and her colleagues to other property owners.

We've been dealing with their Hanley (Stoke) branch. They're supposed to be managing a property but have done pretty much zero (apart from take their cut every month), and we're basically dealing with everything ourselves.

Absolutely unacceptable experience.
We were pressured into paying a holding deposit on the day of the viewing after being strongly led to believe the property would be secured if we paid immediately. No proper checks were carried out beforehand, and no questions were asked about credit history prior to taking our money.

During the application, we were fully transparent about adverse credit. Despite this, we were later told the application had been declined due to referencing however, this decision was communicated before the referencing process had even been completed, which raises serious concerns about how decisions are actually being made.

When challenged, no clear or specific reason has been provided. GDPR has been used as a blanket excuse to avoid giving even a basic explanation, which is not acceptable.
To make matters worse, they are now attempting to retain the holding deposit despite no false or misleading information being provided. This feels completely unjustified.

Overall, the process was rushed, misleading, and lacked transparency from start to finish. Based on our experience, we would strongly caution others before paying any holding deposit without getting everything clearly confirmed in writing first.

A dreadful experience. I am a landlord, and was gobsmacked at the fees these clowns charged for their services. I have been charged £60 and £90 by two other agents to serve a section 13 advising of a rent increase.( a one page downloadable form which requires the insertion of a couple of names and addresses on along with the proposed rent increase. BKB's fee for this service?? £250!!!!!!! based on this and their overall very poor communication skills and speed with which they act on instructions, (snails pace) I have decided to remove my property from their management, once I have paid their extortionate six weeks rent plus VAT severance fee. They really should be out out of business.

Originally disappointed by BJB in the lack of communications, poor response times to questions and also seemingly a reluctance to drive the sale through.

When the house was first put up for sale, we were given an excellent sales pitch with clear expectations, the promise of buyers looking for exactly what we had and were shown strong data and examples. The agents fees were much higher than other tenders however it felt more polished and were a recognised name in the area. Once signed up, the service delivery quickly became extremely poor.

I had to constantly chase data reports (clicks, what was the online footprint like) and had to keep calling the business for updates despite promises that they would call me. Throughout the process from Mar 2025 until Dec 2025 we were constantly frustrated by lack of any communication, a refusal to deliver what was promised (a weekly 2 minute update and report) and despite calls into the office and leaving messages we were left with no return calls on many occasions.

At this time we were serious considering changing agents especially after our sale fell through on what was supposed to be completion day.

However, this changed in January 2026 when Kelly Johnson took over our sale and she has been a breath of fresh air. Professional, friendly and always in communication with both our solicitors, buyers and ourselves she has been an absolute delight to deal with, so much so that my solicitor spoke really highly about her as a pleasure to work with.

BJB have got an absolute gem there and I would highly commend her as an example of excellent customer service where nothing was too much. Thank you Kelly, you have been such a great help in our sale and we would recommend you to anyone looking to sell their property.

Do Not Rent from Butters John Bee or Spicerhaart. You will be ignored when you need repairs. 3 years of begging for repairs and I gave notice and moved out. You get letters saying you owe rent when you have paid in full. Don't overdo pay as your credits are ignored and written off. Statements are begged for and incorrect. And when you try to move out, they harass you, try change the date and demand more money. They ignore proof that the keys are returned and disregard their own tenancy agreements. Still being harassed for rent I don't own and keys they have acknowledged receipt of and now they want to go to court. Don't try calling them either. They never answer the phone. They only know you when they want money, even if your account is in credit.

Very difficult experience - recommend other letting agents. Save your time, energy and money. Carried out expensive repair using own contractor and not informing of cost before repair - paying several hundred pounds for a simple light fix, missing rental income despite tenant paying full rent, can't get hold of lettings team to resolve anything so issues naturally escalate, put at risk re compliance checks for gas/electric etc. Raised several issues with Ombudsman after following complaints process. Ended up communicating directly with tenant as was easier and ensured property legal/complaint/safe etc.

unable to get hold of staff to talk about issues or late rent. you can ring 10 times and no one answer. lots of good staff left the company.

1. BJB appointed to let my house
2. Full management fees 13% paid
3. BJB took £180 per month to take care.
4. BJB failed to vet the tenants
5. BJB assured me there were 2 tenants
6. Transpires 5 tenants were on site.
7. Border Control arrest illegal immigrants.
8. Tenant 1 given custodial sentence
9. Tenant 2 failed to pay rent 8+ months.
10. BJB failed to reimburse me all non- payments despite investing in BJB rent and legal protection.
11. BJB failed to carry out TDS procedures to recoup damages to my property.
12. BJB failed to return keys to me.
13. BJB still owe me outstanding non-payments.
14. BJB have a high staff turn over due to dissatisfaction in working conditions.
15. BJB staff fail incessantly to respond to any form of communications.
16. I have extensive evidence, both documentary and video, to reinforce these comments.

If anyone has similar experiences please share your reviews to protect others from enduring the heartache and anxiety caused by this poor company.

AVOID at all costs!
We had the worst experience renting with butters!
We rented for three years, with no missed or late payments, there was significant work that needed to be done on the property that they were informed about and aware of a large leak on the driveway, huge cracks in plaster, no working taps upstairs and rising Damp downstairs, after being aware of this for four months and no work carried out they rang us to increase the rent! we disagreed with this and again informed them of the jobs that needed doing, jobs which they had been out and taken photos of, so we’re fully aware! Again informed they would sort the outstanding jobs, we continued to pay the same in rent, heard nothing for the jobs, but were then sent an eviction notice after just one month! In short a revenge eviction because we’d asked for the work to be done!
It took six months for these jobs to be done from us first asking, and not all of them were done by the time of our eviction. The downstairs was still full of damp, we had given absolutely no reason to evict us at the time, other than missing one month of the increased section of the rent, which we had agreed to as long as the jobs were done.
We had loads of phone calls asking why we were in arrears which we explained every time we were not paying the extra until the property was at a decent standard, not one bit of maintenance done on the property in the three years! There was no communication between any of the staff at all, not one person knew what the last person had said! Just to add to all this I’d just given birth via c section just before our eviction, it completely ruined my whole pregnancy the stress and trying to find somewhere else to live! As well as just trying to get them to do the maintenance.
Please do not put yourselves in the same situation we did, they are not to be trusted.

As a landlord BJB managed two properties for twenty years. Since the takeover by Spencer Hart they have become worse than useless.
If you are considering using this company be aware, your telephone calls and emails will go unanswered. No one will ring you back. Service is non existant.
You have been warned.

If it were possible to rate this company lower than one star, I absolutely would. The level of service I received was extremely disappointing. The manager made a number of bold promises about what their business would achieve for me, yet none of these claims materialised. Communicating with them is incredibly frustrating — you’re routed through what appears to be a call centre that has no knowledge of your situation and no interest in connecting you with the local branch.

The office felt disorganised, and the staff seemed inexperienced and indifferent. At no point did I feel that they cared about me as a customer or about the quality of their work. Even after I terminated my contract, they continued to market my property for more than a week past the agreed end date.

I could list many more issues, but the pattern is clear. I expect they’ll reply here with an apology, but that won’t change the experience I had. I strongly advise choosing a different estate agent — there are many in the area who are far more competent and professional.

Just a really awful experience. High turnover of staff. Often it took 6 + weeks to get a reply to a email after relentless chasing. We were paying a full management fee as we were living overseas, so this was a nightmare and very stressful. We finally made contact with the tenant and we were so shocked to see the state of the property. Black damp everywhere and the tenant had made a formal complaint to the council. So grateful not be working with this agent anymore. Please do your research - we have another property and the agent is amazing.

Shocking ringing all week to view a property and all I get is they will ring you back and nothing.wont buy a house with them as you can’t even get a viewing

This company needs to 'up' its communications. I emailed the Hanley (Staffordshire) branch, no reply. So I rang a number I found after an online search for the Hanley office and got their head office (I think) in Colchester! The dialling code was correct for the Hanley area, so this is highly deceiving. I wanted to speak to Hanley. How can anyone in Colchester know about what's going on in Hanley? The person who took my call was pleasant and said she would contact Hanley and that I should also email again too so that they could connect the two messages. The two stars are for the fact that I did actually get to speak to someone albeit the wrong person. I did email again and got no reply. Get your communications sorted BJB, you aren't making a good impression.

terminated our management agreement with Hanley office , they still collected the rent and now a month later I am still chasing the payment month later. spent the whole morning trying to get through to someone , permanently no answer,

I am now taking it to the ombudsman.
disgusting service, will never use them again.

AVOID