Portico Property - Bloomsbury Reviews 16

As a landlord Portico are the worst. Every month deductions are made from rental payments with any explanation or prior agreement. Statements are indecipherable. Trying to navigate Portico's opaque processes is like dealing with a deceptive bunch of criminal thieves. They are dishonest and the absolute worst of the worst. I pay 11.5% for management + Premier Service (???) and receive nothing. Reserve funds are held for years with no interest paid?? Total scammers

Actually 0 Stars. Took a holding deposit from 4 female students on an £5.85k rental and then said someone else offered £6.1k less than a few hours later - so what exactly do portico think a holding deposit means?
But the very next day came back and said we can still have it if we pay £6k…

To be honest the house itself was rather grotty and the agency so unprofessional so I think this was a blessing in disguise. Still Portico is to be avoided and other reviews seem to confirm this.

Its due to agents like Portico that a renters rights bill is on its way…which will outlaw this sort of behaviour “ Landlords and letting agents will be legally required to publish an asking rent for their property and banned from asking for, encouraging, or accepting any bids above this price”.
Games up soon for you Portico.

Now waiting for the holding deposit money back (I bet that is not returned in a hurry) .

As you can see from the Portico response, they don't take these things seriously at all. Disgraceful.

Not sure Portico are actually still trading, my son is a tenant and we have emailed several times left several voice messages and after two weeks no one has responded. I’d be very cautious using them.

We had Zudi doing the bathroom work. He did a really good job and is being very friendly and helpful. I’m very happy with the job he has done.

Salma was very helpful, friendly and professional, and helped make the letting process easier. Thank you Salma!

Patient and nice support from the agency. Great locations.

Salma made the flat hunting process so easy and stress free — she was always available over text or call to answer any questions!

The renting experience with Portico Bloomsbury was very smooth and easy thankfully to the amazing Salma and her team (Tom)! I would highly recommend Salma, she was always extremely kind, honest, and efficient, and always available to answer all my questions. This has been my best renting experience since being in the UK!

Excellent communication, really knowledgeable, process was easy. They always had an answer to my questions.
They made what could have been a stressful situation really really easy.
Thank you Salma!!

Great experience as a first time renter. Salma and Adam were very understanding and communicated well throughout the process.

Salma did an excellent job of answering questions, providing access to view the property, and being flexible with timeframes. She was most helpful and professional.

My experience with Portico Bloomsbury was ok for most of my tenancy but it was utterly terrible at the end.

At the beginning of my tenancy Portico was quite helpful and well organised. However, at some point they had been acquired by a larger company and then the quality in service fell to a shocking level.

When my tenancy in Euston was coming to an end I had organised a separate company to clean the flat the day after my tenancy had ended. Portico agreed to this and said that they would leave the key in a box outside Portico for the cleaners to pick up. They failed to do this and I got charged anyway because the cleaners had to wait for a long time as no one showed up to the office when it was supposed to open. I then had to argue with Portico to say that I should not have to pay for cleaning anymore because I had sorted it out and it was Porticos fault that no cleaning actually happened. They agreed and accepted their mistake, but this should not have happened in the first place.

Prior to this, my calls were being consistently ignored by Portico for hours when I was trying to sort out and understand what I was supposed to do in order to properly vacate the property. I even went to Portico in person to talk to them as they kept saying that they were busy, they simply did not care as I was no longer paying money due to me moving out.

After that terrible turn of events happened the matter of the deposit began. Initially they attempted to charge me for cleaning despite them already agreeing that they would cover it as it was their fault. They also tried to charge me for missing items, which were clearly visible in photos on the Check-in and Check-out documents which they had provided themselves. They tried to charge me for a broken door which was low-quality, cheap and several decades old. They did this despite my reporting it to Portico stating that it was broken before the end of the tenancy, which they had an obligation to fix free of charge. They attempted to charge me for leaving items behind which all were present in the flat when I moved in and was present in the check-in photos which they provided themselves.

All of these charges I got removed but it took a staggering 50 days of emailing and having to repeat myself to them over and over again. The incompetence was astounding. They could not even properly compare documents which they provided as evidence to charge me with. I had to sort through them, evidence the truth and present it to them when the burden of proof was on them as they were the ones making the claims. They were charging ridiculous prices for the things that they were claiming. For example, for a cheap old plywood door they said that it would cost us £375 (approx) to get it repaired and that this was actually only half of the price!

I would not recommend Portico - Bloomsbury to anyone. It is a terrible organisation, it does not care about it's tenants and behaves in an unprofessional way due to the incompetence of its staff.

Finding an affordable flat and keeping it in order is a complicated matter in a city like London. We have been very happy with the service of Portico especially with the help and assistance of Mr. Jesus Perez who has answered every our enquiry and has supported us through the re-rental of our flat in London. He helped us get through all the negotiations and documents with efficiency, precision but also kindness and understanding.

It came a moment when we should either find another tenant or renew the current lease contract with the actual tenants. Without being into UK for quite some time, we are not cleary aware of any changes in the rental market. Uwais Malilk has been very precise in all information given to us and options we could take and is very efficient to conclude a renewal with our tenants with conditions cited before.

The Bloomsbury team were very helpful with my search for a place to let in the area. Max was knowledgeable and had the answers to any questions I had about lettings. I would recommend him for his professional service.