Braemore Sales & Lettings Reviews 

I thought I'd review Braemore as I've recently started renting a flat through them. I have to say - reading some of these comments had me a bit concerned - but I'm pleased to say that my overall experience has been very good.

I've dealt with a few of the staff there now (Sonny for the initial viewing of the property, Carol for the references/signing tenancy agreement and picking up the keys and Kirsten is my property manager) and all have been friendly and knowledgable.

The whole process from start to finish was also very quick - they use an online referencing company (UK Tenant Data) and pretty much everything is done online through an online dashboard - Braemore also provide access to a customer portal (Tilli) which acts as a home move assitant which helps take care of setting up your utilities etc.

Overall, I found it all to be fairly slick and pain-free and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to anyone else.

Please stay away from Braemore letting. Braemore has made myself and my girlfriends last month a living nightmare.
We have been looking for a flat to rent for a little while and finally found one that ticked all our boxes through Braemore. We went to see the flat after we had both finished work and by then it was dark, we entered the flat and there was no electricity and was explained that landlord had turned this off as it has been unoccupied for over 4 weeks; both thought that made sense and used our phone lights to look around. Long story short we applied for the flat, paid the deposit and first month rent all ready to move in. Told we could not get the keys for 2 weeks which was great meant we had plenty time to get all our belongings from the old place. Then the nightmare happened! We were meant to move in on a Friday, and we received an email from the 'property manager' 3 days before we moved in at around 1.30pm. Which stated that there was something wrong with the electricity in the property. Now from the email it sounded as though there was something wrong with the cables but in fact after many emails back and fourth he meant that it was down to the electric supple. Then it got worse the 'property manager' had no clue who the electric supplier was so I began to find out for ourselves. Instead of emailing I then called and each time after I was promised a call back that same day but never happened. Thursday comes, one day before move in. No closer to electricity getting sorted and by now we are getting worried and annoyed that we are not getting a clear answer. More calls and emails and still nothing has been done and the 'property manager' is now ignoring our calls and emails, still not been sorted and by now we are thinking well we are moving in to a flat that is meant to be maintained by the a letting agency but clearly they are neglecting it. Friday arrives and I had to go collect the keys. Was handed an inventory and one the first page it clearly states electricity not working. It also writes that there is no battery in the smoke alarm and it needs fixed, plus 4 different light bulbs missing or broken. Now for these simple things not to be changed or fixed before a paying tennant moves in sparks massive issues. The electricity was a prepayment meter so I just maybe thought that it needed money in this so I went out tried that but no success. Couple phone calls later to the 'property manager' and now emails for him to says that we would have to wait for an engineer to come out and fix the problem. Clearly stating that they think it is our problem.
Monday morning arrived, straight handed the keys back as Braemore have violated their contract with the upkeep of the property which both parties signed. We were then told we would get a full refund for both the deposit and rent. Some of this was refunded on the Monday but the rest still to be seen. I was told on Monday that all the refund was accepted and it would be back into my account.
A week later we are still awaiting the full refund. Also no apologises for us having to fork out on a storage unit and leaving us living in a hotel until we find a new place.
This company does not care about it clients or tenants, they have simply lost their ability to deal with customers. Stay clear of Braemore letting.

Now that tenancy experience is over I must share it with anyone interested to rent out with this agency edinburgh branch. Even though this story may not come as a surprise to some of you I was actually super disappointed and came to a unpleasant reality check. It was my second tenancy in general in UK, first viewing, arranging deposit and one rent in advance done over phone with some nice girl (they do that btw,employ all these nicy -nicies to make the first impression, then they chase you through email to leave a review and "tell us how we did" stuff and you jump thinking oh I better do it now and write all things good). February 2019 moved in, no heating, boiler going in red with the pressure as soon as you turn it on. Send a report. Wait. Wait. March still no heating in flat. Did I mention the flat was in Dunfermline, Scotland? So yeah, cold. Chasing the property manager with emails. If you are one of unlucky buggers like I was where my landlords had their own group of contractors independent from agencies team then you are pretty much left to wait. The deadlines are...well there are no deadlines so any repair can take a while, a month, two, six? Who knows. Finally some heath yes! Happy with that, doing all soft furnishings but crap theres awful lot of rain this year in Scotland so my bedroom started to leak, something that careful eye could see there was a leak before me but never got fixed as it turns out. New layer of gloss will cover that hey. After endless emails, photos and videos of leak, reporting through agencies system (at one point a have seen a dent in plaster that is just ripe enough to burst right on my bed but luckily rain stopped that night) there is still no real attempt to address this issue. On Christmas I decided to treat "my" space with lovely thick purple carpet in lounge (my only breach of contract as I did not inform anyone, but I'm thinking to myself can they object to upgrade on my expence? After all the ugly brown one was a bit worn out and had some gum stains which I highlighted in check in inventory report). then the lockdown came. Rents being payed on time every first of the month. I was one of the lucky ones to have job and 100 % payed one too. Bedroom still leaks, my bed base getting wet...
Partner and I decide in September 2020 to move in together so I put a notice 30 days, set a weekend my free one off work) to go and scrub the flat from top to bottom (it's only a 1-bed flat but I like being thorough, I am a true Virgo). All the furniture out, windows done, few holes in walls filled and painted with magnolia, the flat smells crazily fresh I dare to say it's clean so you can roll sushi on the floor. So very pleased with myself.
Anyway to cut the long story short, I couldn't get my deposit back in full because a cleaning fee was claimed of it for cooker deep clean. Mentioned cooker was one of those 30 odd years old where you can only buy a new one cleaning is just not get you anywhere. I hardly used oven as it only had gas 6 the flame was so loud I didn't want think something is about to burn.
It was one of those things that really hurt me. I was a genuine, hardworking tenant, taking care of the place like it was my own, spotless, and it seriously get me this "is it possible that every tenant is treated like a criminal and a dodgy dirty hoarder"??!! We are not all "tenants from hell"!! And you can't find nothing so you will charge 66 £ for deep clean?! How crooked is that?
Property Manager Derek Rowland was the most useless man I have came across, and I mean waste of space throughout the tenancy period. His replys and corespondation is below average (if reply at all). Such a lack of humane response and emphaty and coldness would put you off so badly you pray you don't need to contact him ever again. Disgrace. Nothing he done was done to mitigate my status or my needs (and I wasnt demanding tenant). And last thing he done sending me the invoice for cleaning without decency to include before and after photos so I see what was cleaned with my money. Absolutely raging,still after almost a month that I'm not there.
Make yourself a favour and never rent from them.

Having viewed two flats during COVID, which is no mean feat in itself, Paul couldn’t have been more helpful and gave great advice. I found a property the same day and moved in within 3 weeks. The time it took for another letting agent to reply to my message enquiring about one of their properties!
Paul was responsive to email and text messages and was a perfect go-between with the landlord on all my queries. The service received from the Braemore team has been good all round.

We have just moved into a rental property in Fife, dealing from the start with Shirley Baker at their St. Andrews Office. From the first contact to completion we have found the service to be extremely friendly and efficient. Emails were answered promptly and forms sent quickly.
Isla Horsburgh showed us around the property and supplied a full, accurate 52 page inventory+check in, including lots of photos. Very impressed.
Emails are now being received from the property management team offering any help we may need.
So far Braemore have exceeded our expectations and one cannot ask for much more than that!

The worst experience I have ever had as a tenant. With Braemore everything goes well until you need anything from them. They don't bother to answer emails or calls and they try to charge for everything they can. Horrible experience, avoid at all costs!

I thank Paul Davis for his great professionality and availability.

Teri answered a call I made enquiring about a flat I viewed. She was rude and abrupt after I asked why no one was picking up the phone, cutting me mid sentence, advising me that the property was gone and 'that was the luck of the draw' despite no one replying to a voicemail I left at Braemore the day before enquiring about the same flat.

To trivialise a prospective tenant missing out on a property in such a flippant manner is so unprofessional and she topped that by going on to preach that I should have known to directly email the staff member who showed me the property and not to phone them at the office as they were very 'busy'. She also insisted that I was given the email address of the viewer, which I had no recollection of.....

Her general tone was off and when I asked to speak with a manager to make a complaint she said 'ehm not now, it's lunch time'........

Of course, no one from Braemore had the decency to call me back after that (surprise surprise).

To see so many people lose their jobs due to COVID 19 and struggle to find work while these type of people can sit in their comfy jobs, being rude and moaning about being busy tells its own story!

No wonder this is littered with complaints about their attitudes.

Generally poor, difficult to get hold of, and staff very patronising. Staff seem unable to comprehend or process anything other than bog standard information, and treat customers as if they are doing you a great favour. I have acted as a guarantor on rented property four times in recent years, and my experience with Braemore has been the most frustrating to date.

Sonny was very polite, attentive and answered all of our questions. As my parents aren't native speakers it's sometimes a bit more difficult to comunicate throughly, but Sonny had no problem with this.
Thank You so much!

Sonny showed me around the property and was extremely helpful and friendly. Juli and her colleague who's name has escaped me (possibly Keira?) were extremely helpful when sorting our deposit. Couldn't recommend them enough.

Awful service. Takes them ages to react to any repair request, or any communication in general. Quite rude in their interactions, as if they were doing you a favour, while it is actually their job.

After a zoom call to see the flat they got back to us and had the correct forms within 24 hours of paying the holding fee.
Really helpful and quick at email replies

I rented a property in Dunfermline from Braemore and found my property manager Kjartan extremely helpful.

He would reply to emails quickly and resolve the few maintance issues quickly. For example the toilet flush stopped working and it was fixed the next day.

I have not had any issues that other reviewers have had and received my full deposit back with no deductions.

The worst agency in Edinburgh, which is a remarkable accomplishment. When my lease ended my landlord decided to use Braemore to find new tenants as he and his wife had just had a baby. Braemore proceeded to try to blame me for a failed viewing (claimed they had messaged me to arrange access - they hadn't and had no proof that they had), let people into my flat without any prior notice while I wasn't home, and on another occasion exited the property without locking the door behind them (we had been burgled 6 months prior). Do not rent any property they are associated with.

Edit: you can see below that they've asked me what property I was staying in when these issues occurred. The issues were clearly communicated at the time, and the fact that they're not sure which property was involved (given these problems would be out of the ordinary to any reasonable person or organisation) implies these ridiculous issues are quite common for them. The alternative being that this is a transparent attempt to make it look like they take these issues seriously, which they don't.

Edit 2: another response from them, now implying that I wasn't a resident. As stated in my first paragraph, I was never formally a resident of their company, they took over a property as I was leaving. Absolutely disgraceful and another perfect example of their business practice.

They've also tried to imply in their response that I was never a tenant, which is typically reflective of their business practice. Disgraceful.

I have been looking for a place to move in next month. I have sent them about 4 or 5 emails to enquire about some properties that I think are a good fit and I haven't heard back from them. I also tried calling them (3 times) and they never picked up the call. From now on I will just ignore all Braemore managed properties because I can only begin to imagine how they will be once you become a tenant.

Upon moving into the flat that looked as though it hadn't seen a clean since the mid '90's, We promptly bleached, cleaned and scrubbed every surface to make it hygienic and functional.
After various other battles with the Braemore over mould, mice and leaks, our lease was up and it was time to move out. Again, we bleached, cleaned and tidied the whole flat to a much higher standard than when we first arrived.
They are currently witholding the £3600 deposit and 60 days have elapsed since we moved out.
Fergus Walker and Bruce Rothwell have not been particularly helpful and I would request you ask for a new property manager if they are assigned to you. In fact, I recommend you do not choose to rent a flat with Braemore at all.

This is the worst estate agents I have ever encountered , this estate agent had my property for nearly 4 months and still couldn’t market it , the sheer incompetence of their staff beggars belief, I found them through GetAgent website who put them in the top three in Edinburgh,what a con, obviously a commission led site. When I complained they just dismissed it all, their agent left Nark Webster left us high and dry to join another estate agent. After over a week of trying to contact them they eventually phoned to say Donna Reape was taking over, she was even more incompetent and eventually after she couldn’t manage to market the property advised us to rent it out, their incompetence cost us over £6000 , stay away from these cowboys at all costs.

During coronavirus epidemic, despite knowing staff are accessing their emails, they refuse to answer my request for rent support/holiday
We are very long term clients, but this counts for nothing!
We have numerous other issues unaddressed
I’d avoid if a potential renter!

By far the worst letting agency I have ever been with. I can't even begin to think about how awful this company is. If I could give 0 stars I would.

- Gave us a flat without essential items which you would expect a "fully furnished" flat to have like pots, pans, plates etc.
- Tried to overcharge us for cleaning (hundreds of pounds for minimal cleaning) which we took into our own hands with My Deposit Scotland and put in a dispute with them which eventually finalised and we got money back as My Deposit Scotland also believed we were being overcharged. We even looked at cleaners in the Edinburgh area who would have cleaned our flat for more than half the price of what Braemore was trying to charge.
- The staff are incompetent, asked about our broken hoover which didn't come with a charging plug which was needed to actually get the hoover to work and basically got the response of "find your own way to fix it". Didn't even offer us a brand new hoover, we had to go and buy one ourselves.
- All they care about is how much money they can take back from your deposit at the end of the tenancy so I fully encourage anyone who is renting with Braemore to put in a dispute with My Deposit Scotland and get money back and not try and get overcharged.
- Staff were rude and cheeky to my flatmate when she spoke with them on the phone. Not helpful at all. Tried to blame us for things wrong with the flat that were already present when we moved in.
- Had the cheek to email us during our tenancy to say our rent is going up by hundreds of pounds giving us no option to state otherwise. Thankfully moved out prior to this increase in rent.

Please avoid this letting agency at all costs. Shocking customer service, little to no remorse for any of their tenants, unprofessional and overall a terrible company. Confuses me as to why any landlords in Edinburgh trust these people.

Avoid at all costs, plenty of other letting agencies out there that actually have a morals.