Northwood GB Reviews 309

I would not recommend Northwood to any landlord, they are extremely unprofessional and not to be trusted with your property or money. They withheld deposit funds, even after the tenant agreed to use part of the deposit for repairs. I never received that money. Communication is extremely slow, and they avoid responsibility. I’m seeking legal advice to try to recover what I’m owed.

They are dreadful, shockingly poor, amateurish and inept. My advice to all would be to avoid this terrible outfit, go to a reputable agent, i learned at my cost, don't make the same mistake.

If I could give a zero I would. These people are holding my money. Money which they say they haven’t received despite my bank proving otherwise. My experience is that they are simply incompetent. The property we were taken to had a missing window, no knobs on the washing machine, dangerous sockets hanging off the wall and a carpet that looked like someone had taken a car engine apart on it. Unprofessional and certainly incompetent when it comes to refunding holding fees. They say they haven’t received it. My bank has proven otherwise. Goodness knows how they handle peoples rent. Reported to the Lettings Ombudsman and the FCA for fraudulently retaining our money. If you don’t want a headache day in and day out when you let a property, avoid these people as my experience is they are not fit to perform the task of a letting agent.

I viewed a property and showed interest in letting it. Upon continuous follow up I was told that they haven't heard back from the landlord. However, the same day in evening the property was shown as let agreed. Don't know what is the reason behind this and the property was let agreed only after 02 days of viewing.

I reported an empty property to this company which is suffering criminal damage, they have the property up for sale, they promised to let the owner know and give me a call back ,none of which as happened, beware of using this company

This company was very helpful all the way through the sale of my house. Claire was on hand to answer all of my questions and offered helpful advice until the day of sale. Would recommend this company.

Hi emma Reid came round today to do our inspection she’s so lovely .northwood are so lucky to have emma as thier team member .i

I was taken aback by how rude the person on the phone was while I was enquiring about a property. It's surprising how arrogant someone can

These guys are real low rent, Their communications to tennants are borderline passive aggressive and their handling of the end of tenancy left much to be desired. If you are looking to rent a property avoiding this company is a sound move which you will not regret.

Please read the reviews before even entertaining this company. We had the misfortune of renting off them for 4 years. In August last year they tried to evict us with a section 21 no fault eviction. Luckily we had an amazing no win no fee solicitor and barrister who found numerous failings with Northwood paperwork. Namely being their gas safety certificates were invalid over the 4 years! The judge promptly dismissed their possession order. We now have a new letting agent. Horrible nasty business.

rented out a 2 bed flat with Northwood really nice clean and updated in style had everything local to me ease of renting also and helpful staff when needed.

I moved into a rental property two weeks ago, on the 3rd day I came home to find my bathroom flooded with sewage. I called the management lady and she had no urgency about getting it sorted. It's still not been sorted so I live in fear of my bathroom flooding, I cannot shower because it doesn't drain. It's scheduled to be fixed today and I asked them to please make sure the shower drains properly before leaving as it's still flooding and the lady from Northwood scolded me for using the shower, called me inconsiderate and said I should be washing in the sink.

As well as this, they lied and said there was free parking at the property, which there is not, meaning i've spent £205 on a permit and spent £16 on my move in date using meter parking.

Lastly, I asked multiple times about broadband connectivity as I work from home and they told me the socket was in a cupboard in the living room. There is no socket there, and the socket I did find elsewhere in the property is not even connected so I've had no internet the whole time.

I know estate agents are known to be dishonest but this is a whole new level of bad.

Scumbag agents with no scruples. On vacating I was charged £150 to clean the property despite employing a local cleaner to clean….heres the kicker, they knew I had moved 500 miles away and could hold my deposit to ransom with their ridiculous demands which I had no choice but to accept.

I hope these scumbags sleep well at night…I’m well rid of them!

Graf company response for my mistake

I am viewing properties looking to purchase a the moment and Northwood are the worst estate agents I have come across. They have 2 properties I an interested in and I can't get in to view the properties due to the times they offer being very restrictive. I have not come across this inflexibility with any other estate agents. They will only offer the times that suit them during the week in the day time and don't offer viewings at weekends.

Northwood Aberdeen - Flat wasn't cleaned prior to us moving in, not even hoovered. Mould on the bathroom, was picked up in initial inventory but not fixed. Landlord left rusty and broken furniture in the property and dismantled flat pack furniture blocking up storage space. When queried was told to dispose of it myself which we couldn't do. (required a skip rental at our cost)

Cleaned the flat professionally before moving out and was still charged £100 from my deposit to clean the mouldy bathroom which was there on handover.
Disputed it and was told the taps were dirty and water mark on the mirror meant they still needed to charge a £100 cleaning fee despite no photos of any damage.

Not told about any of this until over 33 days after moving out so our £1050 deposit was held while in resolution which we never got as we had 'no evidence'.

Would avoid in future.

It's a shame I can't put 0 as this has been one of the worst experiences of dealing with such an estate agent in all my life!!! We applied for an application to proceed with a rental property and after the landlord agreeing to proceed and taking our holding deposit, we wanted to push our move in date by 3 days due to a family bereavement. Since then, the whole process and service experienced has been diabolical.... they put the property back on the market following this request rather than work with us to come to an amicable solution for everyone to proceed if they were unable to accomerdate the requested date. We raised our concerns and continued to express our intent to the Directors of the business however after raising this to obtain help and support to recitify the issues in the matter to proceed, we have been notified this evening that they now believe our application is unfaverable and have secured another tenant, even though we should still remain a prioiry given the holding deposit that remains in place. This is not only unfair treatment but very UNREASONABLE!!!! They also imposed unrealistic timescales of payment when they want to, inconsistencies in their approach which clearly is a lack of a stardardised approach to customer service and not to mention the lack of transparency of obtaining draft tenancy agreements to give tenants time to review their terms ahead of the tenancy commencing. This firm clearly prefers to operate in a non compliant way with the Consumer Rights Act and the Tenancy Fees Act, and does not care if you have put a holding deposit down, not to mention showing a lack of empathy and flexibility to anybody situation if you need to agree an alternative move in date. This now potentially leave us is a very difficult situation given we were meant to be moving in 7 days, the costs paid to secure removal companies and that we are now unable to stay where we are, leaves us homeless with 4 children in toe. I will be raising this to the regulatory bodies as this is not the standards I'm sure that they expect to treat tenants.

I have been with Northwood Reading for over a year now and they are great. They have dealt with any issues efficiently and quickly. They were very understanding when I lost my job for 6 months.
A big call out to Lisa as she has been great and understanding with my situation. Always willing to help.

Definitely one of the worst agents I’ve worked with and been a renter for many years. Property managers don’t seem to want to help and pass the buck onto tenants to fix instead of getting it fixed properly or even looked at. Some of the staff are very condescending and rude, lack of customer service. Poor replies to emails and it’s always ‘ I’ll let you know’ and never gets back to you. The referencing company/or them also opened an account with an energy company and we were not notified or asked for consent of sharing of our information. Just really not easy to work with. You report any issues and they’re not dealt with unless in a crisis.

This estate agents are very efficient worked with us very closely i would highly recommend to any person who wish to sell there property

Alison and Tony Youmans