Felicity J Lord - Estate and Lettings Agents Islington Reviews 

Very stressful and disappointing experience. Around a month and a half after we had returned the keys, we received an urgent “final demand” claiming overdue rent and threatening possible legal action/CCJ consequences if payment was not made within 3 working days.

As far as we are concerned, this appears to be an error on their system, but the tone of the message was extremely alarming and caused unnecessary distress. We had to immediately dispute the alleged balance, ask them to provide a full rent statement, confirm the tenancy end date and key return, and request that no escalation or credit-affecting action be taken while the issue is investigated.

The email also claimed that they had tried to call us before sending the threat, but we had not received any such call. Communication has generally been very poor. We tried to contact email addresses that had worked previously, but received no proper redirection to the correct people. When an office closed, tenants were not clearly informed or given reliable updated contact details, which made resolving important issues much harder than it should have been.

We also had serious safety concerns during the tenancy. The front door issue, which we believed presented a fire safety risk, was not properly addressed despite being raised. We also raised concerns about a possible gas leak, but someone was not sent round to check it for months.

A letting/property management company should keep accurate records, respond promptly to safety concerns, clearly communicate changes to tenants, and verify its position before sending threats of legal action to former tenants. Based on this experience, I would not recommend them.

Really helpful support. Most valuable is that they take calls until 10pm (great if you’re working until late). Lewis in Islington is great, supported by a really efficient team!

No Stars.
I am a landlord. I have waited until my lovely former tenants had settled their own separate Ombudsman complaint and are now homeowners before posting this.
Avoid avoid avoid. This is for tenants and for landlords.
Something has gone very wrong with this organisation since the pandemic.
Perhaps the fact the market is running so hot means that SpicerHaart/FJ Lord feel they can just sit back and let the extortionate fees roll in.
I only exited my contract by eventually issuing legal proceeding. Stressful and time consuming. FJ Lord conceal information, lie and do not fulfil the most basic of obligations within a management arrangement. They fail to follow their own processes set out in their own contract.
I had no alternative but to issue legal proceedings to recover significant funds due to me as a result of them double dipping fees from previous and new tenants.
They also wasted taxpayers money by failing repeatedly to respect court mandated procedures. This included failing to turn up to mediation (which they had requested) and then failing to give any instructions to their own in-house lawyer at a rescheduled mediation. What a shambles.
It turned out my tenants had their own issues with them resulting from negligence and breaches by FJ Lord. This had been deliberately concealed from me. FJ Lord then tried to pass this as my liability (“just deduct it from the rent”). They had no authority to give this instruction and it was at this stage I sacked them for all the things they had done wrong. They attempted to demand a significant payment from me. I took them to Court.
They failed to transfer the deposit in a timely fashion and were incompetent at every single stage.
They also locked out my representative from the local office when he went to collect the key and they ran away via the back of the office. I was forced to change the locks as they failed to return my property.
What a disgrace.
The firms they use for management work and repairs (for which they get a fee) are of very poor quality and excessively overcharge. I’ve had to spend thousands on remedial works for work I had already paid for by a panel provider.
Brings the whole profession into disrepute. I will never recommend for letting nor use the sales side.
It has been suggested "stealing" is an alternative and appropriate word for their actions.
The incompetence extended to such an extent that they paid the compensation which they were ordered to pay to my former tenants by the Property Ombudsman to the wrong account.
When I made an FOI request they had to report themselves to the Information Commissioner for failing to meet their legal obligations.
Finally, I recently received a call from them asking if I was interested in giving them my property to manage…..

One of the WORSE DECISIONS of my life was signing FJL as my agent. HUGE REGRET.

Almost two or three months ago I cancelled landlord rent insurance. Informed Islington office by email and telephone (spoke with Monty, manager). They ignored my notice and still charged me. called them and was told its being processed. Emailed again, told senior manager, Sai will call me back; never did (as always). To date, it's been no money, senior management looking into matter.

Called today 03/07was informed the person I spoke with will call me back, as usual no call meanwhile they are still taking my money even though this person said boss Sai was suppose to be dealing with my refund.

I mean how long does it takes to refund? They are quick to take my money but crab-like to refund me. Today ended without them calling me back as usual or emailing me of my refund. For years I have complained but this is the worst I have experienced. I can only assume there is a planB for my refund - rob or plan for me to forget about the debt. I mean what else could be reason for significantly delaying this refund? I am so angry at this rogueish deceptive disrespectful behaviour from an agency I've spent ten years of my life. Unbelievable. I have never owed them. I am not the social media type but Felicity J Lord Islington have really grieved me.

Got a spam letter about wanting to buy my property in Islington... only that my address isn't even in England!
Thanks for the amusement. Here's a 1 star in return.

Received a call from Hazel at Felicity J lord Islington, saying my property is for sale and whether I want them to do a valuation. No idea where they got my name and phone number from and my house is very much not for sale. Assumed it was a scam so am even more shocked to find out this is being done by an agency?
Dodgy behaviour!

The worst rental agency ever! They are totally useless, incompetent and lazy.
We gave notice as per our lease agreement and asked them to confirm the amount of the last rent given it was not a whole month. Despite chasers, they never replied and out of the blue, they send an email 10 days before our lease ends to notify that we are in overdue and need to pay asap! Ridiculous.
And the release of the deposit is an even bigger joke. We are still waiting for it although they were supposed to have released it already. We cannot reach them on the phone, they never reply to emails!

Possibly the worst-run company I have ever dealt with, in any field. They don't answer their phones, don't reply to phone messages, don't reply to emails. Our tenant moved out more than a month ago and they haven't returned his deposit, nor have they returned our keys. They failed to forward our post for years and cannot say where it ended up. Literally dozens of emails are needed to achieve even tiny things. Just extraordinarily bad on every level.

I had a tenant who would not move out - I could not be more frustrated about the total LACK OF SERVICE I am getting from Felicity Lord. They are:

- unresponsive - do not answer phones - do not return phone calls.
- incompetent - Issued incorrect papers so we lost 2 months

I am utterly in despair about how to move forward.

They are WORSE than Poor. They are just ABSENT.

No point in elevating to the manager (Natalie Carter) - she particularly does not call back (though her team are polite and try to be helpful).

DO NOT USE THEM IF YOU EVER think you may need some professional input.

Poor customer service. Never got a response from the agency on time. It takes about 2 weeks to get an email response from them. Deposit still has not been released 3 months after we left the property. Property managers are not qualified to their job properly and looks like the management is not great at all

If you are looking to use Felicity J Lord as either a tenant or landlord, I implore you to read on. I have NEVER been subjected to the level of incompetence and unprofessionalism from a letting agent as I have the past 2 ½ years and counting with FJL.

My pregnant partner and I were accepted to rent a property through FJL Stoke Newington in September 2021. We were given the incorrect salary threshold in the midst of reference checks which caused a highly stressful situation as we had already given notice on our previous property. By the time the mistake had been rectified by us with no apology forthcoming from the letting agent, I had already instructed my accountant to file an early tax return as an extra expense.

In our two years living in the property, we had general issues needing assistance. One such event was the washing machine not operating effectively. My partner and I called, left emails and physically visited the FJL Stoke Newington branch for MONTHS but didn’t receive any assistance to our issue.

We had an ongoing request to check the extractor fan system was operating as it should be in our new baby’s bedroom, as the heat was going to become a big issue in the hotter months. Only after countless more calls, emails and visits to the branch, we were instructed that the property manager looking after us no longer worked at the SN branch and our property was now in the care Bow. We were put in touch with someone who could assist us but didn't hear anything after an initial email. I managed to speak to a property manager on the phone who attempted to gaslight me by saying I was ‘expecting things to be done on my time’ until I made a firm point at how unacceptable their behaviour and our treatment so far had been. I did receive an apology email after our call and assurance that the matter was now in their hands directly and would be dealt with accordingly. I subsequently never heard from that property manager regarding the fan again.

We were informed by the landlord towards the end of our tenancy that the rent would be going up by an EXTRA £1250pm. We were not able to afford this amount and started looking for a new property in a highly volatile market. We finally managed to secure a new place when the landlord informed us that he was given an incorrect valuation by FJL, had the property valued elsewhere and would raise it to an amount that would have been acceptable to us to stay in a property we loved. By this point, we had packed up and paid a significant amount of money to move to the new property.

During our final month of the lease, FJL didn’t contact us ONCE. We had to liaise directly with their partners for inspection and key-drop services, there was no courtesy email regarding our exit from the property or deposit details. I also had to email them and cc in the landlord about some work he instructed them to carry out but they didn’t complete. Yet still charged the landlord in full!!

We waited almost a month to receive the check-out report and details of our deposit return from the Islington PM team, despite chasing. We had to go to the landlord direct to check if he had received any contact. As he also had a long list of grievances to discuss with FJL, he contacted the PM team and only then did we receive the report, which suggested everything was in order and we should receive our full deposit back. However, due to the huge delay by FJL in receiving the report, the landlord visited the property direct and felt that the report didn’t reflect some of the wear and tear that had occurred during our stay. Out of goodwill, we agreed that he could get a quote from a contractor for work and we could negotiate from there. He also asked the PM to release 75% of our funds, which they did after weeks zero response to his request.

The landlord received a quote which reflected much more than our lease time. We have asked the PM in charge of the negotiation to clarify our rights and negotiate with the landlord, however haven’t received a single response since December 16th 2023 from them. I spoke to one of their colleagues, who promised me they would look into it and is now not responding to emails and calls. I have also twice emailed the manager of the PM team (once with the Area Lettings Director cc’d) with zero response.

As one can imagine, this has been a horrible cloud hanging over us when we should have been settling into our new home and Christmas, especially in the midst of a cost of living crisis. The PM team in Islington NEVER pick up the phone on their direct line and it doesn’t offer a messaging or call-back service. I have also tried calling the general office lines through the week with zero pick-up. The only employees at FJL who have treated us with any professional courtesy and empathy are the concierge switchboard team. Don't be fooled by marketing, FJL is a low grade outfit.

I have had the pleasure of having Soulla Panayiotou the property manager in islington by my side at an extremely stressful time. She was temendous,professional,and very tardy with absolutely everything. She completed my contracts efficiently and made the whole process actually pleasant.
I would highly recommend her to anyone. I cannot express enough what a lovely helpful lady she is.

When being shown the property, our estate agent, Raj, was incredibly informative and enthusiastic at the property. We were bombarding him with questions and he continued to answer everything to the fullest extent. He was excellent! Thank you Raj!

Very happy to be done with this appalling agency. I made the mistake of engaging them as my managing agent on a rental property in Islington. Cue a string of unhappy tenants and avoidable maintenance costs after FJ Lord failed to address issues in a timely manner, even having to be chased for months in some cases. Their quality of service is the worst I've experienced, a mix of incompetence, indifference and contempt. The only thing they seemed to manage was to retain an extortionate proportion of my rental income. Whether you're a renter, landlord or looking to sell, steer clear of this lousy outfit.

Fabian was helpful and responsive, and did not try to force us to take services we didn’t want. Will use them again.

This is the worst agency in my life, they don’t want to work at all, especially Islington office. They lie to you, they make you wait for 4 days to solve your problem or just to take monthly payment. They start to work only if you shout at them.
I rented a flat with manager Ali, I really have no idea why is he working there. First he tried to make my rent higher (he knew I’m from Ukraine and I already have difficulties, I just moved to London because of the war) then he lied that in a flat there’s everything I need and I don’t need to buy anything. I needed to buy vacuum cleaner, iron, kettle and etc
And the day I moved in, Ali is saying that this flat is on sale and every day there gonna be viewings in my flat.
Every month I need to pay the rent over the phone end every month there are some issues in this agency. I spend 3-4 days to call them, to explain them how to take a payment, and only if I shout they start to make at least something. I regret I’ve ever met these people and worked with them!!!!!

We signed FJL up as our property manager in 2019.
In that time, we've had 5 different managers, each hard to get hold of and unresponsive. I've found out that at least three had left after I received an out of office email stating they 'no longer worked for FJL'.
One of the property managers pushed us to sign up tenants who weren't a good fit - who ended up abandoning the property mid-lease.
We have done more admin with this property despite having them as the property manager - and they didn't process a HMRC form properly meaning money was withheld incorrectly for HMRC (when it shouldn't have).
Very frustrated with their poor service and I would not recommend them as property managers at all. I just hope they were decent managers for our tenants (although we've now had 4 tenants over the last 3 years...which gets me thinking they haven't done a stellar job on that end either).

I'm not usually one to complain, and even as I write this I'm still inclined not to give a 1 star review because I would hate to undermine the positive aspects of the service we have received at Felicity J Lord. However the way we've been treated has been nothing short of discompassionate and unfair.

We were moved in an apartment which had not been cleaned - it was absolutely filthy - if it was possible to post photos to this review I would. The previous tenants things were still in the apartment and because we collected the keys on a Saturday nobody at the branch answered the phone despite their opening times suggesting someone should still be in the office. We even stopped by, but they were shut.

A cleaner was eventually sent out part-way through day three, but by this time we had been expected to live in an apartment that was honestly not fit for human habitation for more than 48 hours.

Despite Felicity J Lord admitting fault, we have been sent increasingly threatening arrears letters for the three days of rent which we have refused to pay due to a breach of contract.

I have written this review in part as a warning of the practises of the letting agent which have the ability to impact not only tenants, but also landlords, and in part as an open letter to the management of the company to draw attention to the poor customer service and lack of attention paid during this whole process.

I mentioned at the start of this email that there were good aspects and I do still want to highlight these. Until this fiasco, communication had been pretty good, with nothing to fault of the service. The online referencing tool was easy to use and emails were responded to efficiently.

I was also impressed with how things were initially handled after the weekend, upon their discovering that we had been handed over a disgusting apartment, which was why the follow-up correspondence was so disappointing.

Scammers. They know all the issues the property has, but they hide them and increase the price above the publically asked one. Run away! I don't even know how they manage to sleep at night...

We viewed an islington Flat with Rob Jermain from Felicity J Lord. He was very helpful and patient and the viewing process was very positive and useful. Highly recommended.