Connells Reviews 

Should be shut down for their horrendous tactics. Stealing potential profitability from a seller to line your own pockets. Poor very poor

Awful company. I paid for a RICS survey the valuation was based on comparable sales that were a year old and another that was 9 months old. And not even similar properties. Complete waste of money and you can’t talk to them you have to email details of any issues and get a generic response to say they won’t look into it! You have to appeal and do the work yourself, If I could give them zero stars I would! Use anyone else!

Lmao,
This agency is the worst just after HAART Lettings, I lived in the property at metropolitan house for over 2 weeks without electricity( a pending bill the landlord refused to pay), being bounced around on calls, with no clear communication, mind you I was pregnant at the time, had to go stay with a friend just to have access basic living conditions. no apology, no consideration, no compensation, NOTHING!!

Run away please.

Stay well away. Pushy incompetent staff as well as non cooperative. Do not answer calls or emails. Refuse to transfer tenant’s deposit to a new account. Lots of excuses. If you use The Stevenage branch, they will make sure you lost money as a landlord by giving bad advice and not chasing bad tenants for unpaid rent. Avoid at any cost!

Awful, do not use Connells Exeter. 3 months on market 7 viewings of which 5 were cancelled last minute and never happened. Absolutely disgraceful, offered open days - nothing happened, customer service was poor. Told us to reduce price and still nothing, now leaving them. After seeing Panorama they should be thoroughly investigated.

All experiences have been rubbish. I would never use them to sell my house. Just to get viewings is a shambles

We were asked to quote them for some windows in the NG2 area of Nottingham, we agreed a price, I informed them that we needed a contract signing and a deposit paying, I was asked to send the paperwork to a totally different email address, it was a maintenance companies email, we then received a call from a finance company asking if they could buy the windows directly from our suppliers, this immediately rang alarm bells, so I informed them that we would no longer carry on with the work, we then received a 1-star review on here, awful to deal with, phone calls to my mobile at 9pm, constantly messaging on whattsapp, I genuinely believe that we have had a lucky escape.

Let's face it, most estate agents are somewhat shady but Connells take it to the next level! Unbelievable. stay WELL away!

Absolutely disgraceful service, won't give back deposit after long time partner passed away. Told to put a dispute In but will only get half back as not married. Been going on over a month backwards and forwards to different departments will no good outcome. Do not use them they are disgraceful and diabolical company.

Absolutely the Worst Experience — Avoid Connells Birmingham at All Costs

Our experience with Connells (Birmingham City Centre branch) was nothing short of appalling from start to finish.

1. Phone Calls Ignored for Days
Trying to get in touch with the branch was a nightmare. On multiple occasions, I called the office over 50 times within an hour, and not once did anyone answer. Emails would go unanswered for days, sometimes over a week. Even a formal complaint to Connells head office about this was completely ignored.

2. Withholding Offers and Acting in Their Own Interest
We later discovered Connells withheld a cash offer from us and never informed us. When questioned, they initially denied it — only to later admit it after being presented with evidence. Their excuse? That they were “acting in our best interests” because the buyer was part of a chain. This was a major decision made without our consent, and it's hard to see it as anything but unethical and manipulative.

3. Pressure to Stick with Buyer They Could Profit From
The buyer whose offer we had accepted was using Connells for both their mortgage and conveyancing, and we were too. Once we raised concerns with Connells about the withheld cash offer, they strongly pressured us not to reconsider or back out of the current sale. In hindsight, this was clearly because Connells stood to profit significantly from keeping that particular buyer in place — through commission, broker fees, and legal referrals. Their priority was never our best interests, only their own pockets.

4. Viewings Seemed Rigged Toward Investors
The first 10+ viewings arranged were exclusively from investors, all making insulting low-ball offers and planning to convert the property into an HMO. It felt like Connells were hand-picking investor buyers, possibly due to financial incentives such as referral fees, rather than matching us with serious residential buyers as we had requested.

5. Attempted to Overcharge Us
Connells also tried to overcharge us on fees, and only when we produced the original email agreement did they reluctantly honour the correct amount. Had we not kept written proof, we would have been forced to pay hundreds more than what was agreed.

At the very start of the process, Connells were extremely helpful and couldn’t do enough for us. But the moment we signed with them and the listing went live, everything went downhill. Communication became poor, their conduct turned self-serving, and their attitude shifted to being dismissive and manipulative. Their actions undoubtedly cost us a better sale and made the entire experience far more stressful than it needed to be.

Save yourself the stress and stay far away from Connells Birmingham.
If you need further proof, watch the BBC Panorama documentary “Undercover Estate Agent” — it reflects our experience almost exactly.

They over state value of your property then get you to reduce.
They promise they have enough interested parties for open days.
But after months and 2 price reductions they fail to even produce one viewing. Avoid these scam artists.
They have no ethics and then tie you in to a 26 week sole agency contract that means you miss serious buyers who are not beneficial to their sales bonus incentive programmes.
Plymouth

Wish I could give them zero stars. They are absolutely shocking. My elderly father had his holiday home in Paignton on sale with them for the last 6 months. They were rubbish from the start. Very little communication, always promise a call back, never bothered. They’d book a viewing and cancel it the same day. He had a cash buyer, who made a very cheeky offer that was excepted. 2 weeks later fell through, as the buyer pulled out. (Apparently) after watching the paranorma show on BBC about them, we see it’s a common sneaky tactic they use. Put off cash buyers in favour of someone taking out a mortgage. They called him last week and said he needs to drop by £10,000 to get people through the door. He’s not desperate to sell, so said no. Yesterday we sacked them after waiting or a week for them to call us back. They are pure filth, do not trust these people!! Any of them. He was dealing with the branch in Paignton. Absolutely shocking.

Far too pushy .
Working to constantly increase sellers offer whilst supplying buyer with mortgage.
Is this even legal?

AVOID - Connells of Taunton have invoiced me (as a landlord) a £300 bill for a £25 a month rent increase notice to my tenant. That will mean taking their monthly management fee into account, it will take more than a year of this £25 rent increase to pay their fees, and by this time it will be time for me to possibly look at another rent increase. With fees like this its no wonder landlords have to put in large rent increases. I wish I had now!!

I had put a lot of trust in the house buying process until I came across the Connells Walsall branch. Everything went smoothly up until the point I was being upsold on the in-house mortgage brokers (with Neelam), this was at the not so amazing price of £800!! I refused as I had my own brokers and the entire sale and agent communications went cold.

This £800 for an internal lifetime mortgage broker fee seems very suspiciously like taking money under the table to complete a sale, anyone dealing with these estate agents need to know that you are not obligated to take these and other services they are forcing to sell you (commission based Solicitors or Surveyors).

These unethical and unprofessional tactics has really been one of the most off putting experiences I have ever witnessed.

Anyone in communication with these agents please proceed with caution.

Do a quick google search of “Dubious sales tactics at two leading estate agencies uncovered”, this article brings more light to exactly the experience I’ve just had, there is also a documentary aired recently by BBC on this too.

Very pushy branch manager! Dealt with Autumn in the Peterborough Cowgate branch. Autumn promised the earth when fishing for us to market our property for sale with Connells. Poor service thereon. AVOID

We were weeks away from completing on our house when a close family member received a terminal diagnosis. We couldn’t pull out of the sale so had to find a property to rent whilst I cared for my dying relative. We were reluctant to use Connell’s as they rented out a house close to us where there were no end of problems with the tenants, neighbours complained continuously but they did nothing. A flat came up that gave us the storage we needed and was close to my relative so reluctantly we took it. The sales person Adam Channing (Aylesbury Temple Street branch) came across as a bit of a David Brent character, he had all the chat but nowt else. My husband moved in to the property whilst I moved in with my relative to do Hospice care at home which is incredibly stressful. We discovered the flat had a number of issues. None of the windows had keys and the main bedroom window was locked shut which was a problem as it was on the second floor. One of the patio doors was locked shut without a key. I requested keys from Adam on numerous occasions as it was a fire risk and eventually he handed me a bag with around 100 keys in it to sift through. He tried to insinuate that we’d lost all of the keys but unfortunately for him I’d taken a video and photographed every room on the day we got the keys and no keys were visible. The windows and doors had built in blinds and the one in the bedroom failed and had to be propped open. I reported it in their online system for faults but it was never fixed before we moved out. Some of the electric heaters didn’t work. They were digital and had to be programmed, it didn’t appear that you could just switch it on at the wall. As there was no manual, I requested one from Adam who again gave me the runaround. The TV didn’t work and my husband spoke with Adam who told him it was because our TV was old and we needed to buy a smart TV. I reported it as a fault and a handyman came round who said there was nothing wrong with the aerial, we needed to buy a smart TV. I complained and this time they sent an engineer who checked the aerial and came back to the flat and removed the box behind the TV where the aerial connection was only to find that when someone had screwed the top on, they severed the wiring inside hence no working TV! The same handyman came to look at the patio door which wouldn’t always close shut especially in the hot weather. He fiddled about with it and then said a window fitter would have to come and look at it. You guessed it, it was never fixed. When we got the flat it came with one allocated parking space and you had to register the cars that would use that space otherwise you would get a ticket. We weren’t informed of this and it was only after a few days we noticed the car parking sign. We asked Adam how to register and were told to go online but when I did this, I needed a QR code. We tried ringing the parking company several times and could never get through. After two weeks my husband received a parking fine which was appealed but they weren’t having it. We eventually got through to the office and asked for a code and then received 3 in the post on the same day. Adam had given us a welcome box when we picked up the keys containing silly things like bath salts etc. There were also a dozen takeaway leaflets which were of no interest to us so we didn’t look through them. After a few months I went through the box to get rid of it and buried at the bottom of the leaflets was one about the car parking with the required QR code! Is it me? I would have put that in an envelope with the keys and pointed it out that the cars must be registered asap. The big problem with the flat was that the kitchen had no splash backs or tiles anywhere. The entire flat was spray painted in a cheap white emulsion. We rang Adam and highlighted this and said with the best will in the world we are going to stain the walls whilst cooking and any marks can’t be wiped off as the paint comes off and exposes the plaster. His reply was don’t worry the flat will just be resprayed when you move out. It’s sprayed every time before a new tenant moves in. We queried this with him on 3 occasions as we were concerned about them withholding our deposit but he kept saying it wasn’t an issue. I went online to record it as a fault but there wasn’t a section to report it so I took him at his word. When we moved, I receive an email from the head office of Connell’s to say the flat had been inspected and it was as clean as a new pin but when I enquired about the deposit they said they were not returning our £1400 as the kitchen walls had food stains and had to be resprayed and I hadn’t reported it online. I complained to TDS and it took 4 months to get our money back. Connell’s never responded to TDS. I had all this to deal with whilst caring for a dying loved one, adding to my stress and they were aware of this. Connell’s are a disgrace! I would give zero stars if I could.

Just like others watched the programme Undercover Estate Agent, exposing their very sharp practices. If selling wasn't stressful enough. Avoid
Disgraceful disgraceful company!!!

Dishonest. Blandford branch have taken advantage of an elderly lady which will result in her paying double agency fees, due to ignoring her instructions and advising her incorrectly just to suit their own agendas. As an agent myself I will always stay in my own lane and never call into question the service of another agent, but on this occasion I am so appalled by their actions that I feel they need to be held accountable.