Townends Estate Agents www.townends.co.uk

Absolute illiterate incompetents, did not fix central heating for 1 month. Horrible experience, took the case to the Courts of Law and won it. They made absolute fools of themselves, embarrassing. AVOID AT ALL COSTS

Avoid at all cost. They leased me a property that wasn't cleaned at all, with dirt and disgusting mould like patches on the walls and by the windows. Agency and the landlord claimed that it is professionally cleaned which was obviously not true (see from the pictures).

On top of that I was left without heating and hot water for my first 2 days at the apartment and agency didn't provide any assistance or help during these drastic circumstances. In addition, when I was trying to receive help or guidance my point of contact in agency blocked me even on WhatsApp. They are a abusing the Covid-19 pandemic.

I have leased from different agencies across 3 countries and I can certainly claim that is the most unprofessional agency I ever had contact with and the experience has been dreadful. Please avoid signing with them unless you want to live in a dump with no heating and having a constant headache getting any assistance from them.

Worst service ever! Poor responsiveness and communication, no understanding (or willingness to understand) of the many issues I had in my flat.

Been renting with other agencies, but the Putney branch of Townends is the single worst agency I seen so far. They are basically running a pansy scheme. been in breach of contract from day 1 and their strategy (2 months later) is still trying to wear me off instead of fixing the problems and respect the agreement.

Very, very bad communication and the customer service is below zero.

Definitely the worst estate agent I came across in 20 years of renting (16 flats in 4 different countries, never had such a bad experience).

The branch don't seem to know what is required for renting and give totally different information to their Head Office. The whole process of renting is made unnecessarily stressful and you don't know whether to go by what the branch say or the Head Office. Constant threats of losing the property of having the move in day delayed if we don't give them information that they haven't asked for. Would definitely never use again.

Absolutely awful and completely incompetent. The first and last time I’ve used them. I booked to view to properties in one afternoon with them. They failed to tell me that one property was already of the market and with the other, they failed to book the viewing with the landlord so we couldn’t get in to see the place. The agent looked about 12 and had no personable skills. How the heck are these guys in business??!!

Wrost agency ever!

Never reply back the emails because no one cares about it...Bunch of ignorant people who don't care about the tenants or give any proper information about situations .

Really terrible agency and employees

Just ask for money!

We put a property on with Townends in mid August this year. Property stayed with them exclusively for the 12 week minimum period after which we terminated.

Despite what Townends said was a strong market they failed to sell the property. Property was marketed at a price below what another agent had recommended and was in line with, if not slightly lower, than other similar properties in the area.

Overall it was a very amateurish effort with confused and late notification of viewings. One agent even lost his notes. They included fictional names on the termination list of viewings.

Townends over priced and under delivered from start to finish. I took £600 off a £2200 bill just by being persistent and asking questions.

The branch manager appeared to have been trained in 1950s Communist Russia with one rule for Townends and a completely different set for me as the landlord.

The incompetence around getting one contract signed was unbelievable - they did not even confirm via email when a formal offer was made- to add insult to injury they then accidentally sent me another client's contract with lower rates

Checkout, elec testing and other fees were included without consultation. An admins and legal fee of nearly £500 on top of their % was added.

The staff at the branch office appeared to do nothing or be passive aggressive whenever they were asked to take responsibility or help with anything. They took no responsibility for managing my contract. The contract was made for 2 yrs without proper notice.

They never confirmed when they gave the deposit back to my previous tenant. And when I sent emails asking for clarification at any point if they didn't like the question they would not respond.

We were almost left on the street. I would recommend avoiding this agency that has an amount of liars working within the company, however most of London estate agents are the same.

Me and 3 of my friends were about to rent their property. We had put an offer on the property which was accepted. They were dealing with us for about a week and a half and everything was going smoothly, we also signed a pre-contract. We passed the referencing and were instructed on how much we had to pay to move in. Everyone was confident about everything and started already packing their things. One day before moving in I felt suspicious that no one contacted me anymore. I sent an e-mail to my letting agent and it was ignored. Then I gave a phone call and was promised to get a call back, which was done only late in the evening when the agency was about to close. He called me and said that we are not able to move into the property however it should have happened the next day and we were already ready for that, made all the plans etc. He said that the property had two landlords (Mr and Mrs, probably divorced) and that the landlady was happy to rent the property to us however the landlord secretly advertised the property with another letting agent and had let the property to someone else with another agency on the day when we were about to get instructions about moving in. Stating that those tenants offered more than we did, so the landlady ignored us and the letting agency and doesn't respond to our agent's phone calls anymore. She apologized in case "we were not having a roof for tomorrow".

This was extremely disappointing because one of us was about to move out in two days, and the rest of us in less than a week. We are in trouble. At firstly I believed the story I was told, however I called the second letting agency the next day and they said the property was still available, which means they haven't actually let it to anyone. Finally we just understood that Townends just dropped us off because some potential tenants offered 100-200 pounds more than we did on a last minute when we were about to move in. That flat wasn't even worth the £2300 we were about to pay, as we live in a 3 bedroom flat for £1800 in Fulham (Central London). We were promised by Feisal (one of the letting agents at Townends) that our offer is confident and if it's accepted, it's accepted. What was also suspicious, is that Townends were saying that they didn't know that another letting agency was advertising the flat, however my friends went to see the property without myself about 3 days after I saw it for the first time, and they mentioned that while they were viewing it, someone from another agency was taking the pictures about the property (Because when I went there 3 days before, there already was someone taking pictures from Townends). Basically it came out that Townends knew the fact that they weren't the only ones advertising the property.

We are ripped off and deposit wasn't paid back yet. Only apologies in words were received, nothing else.

I was looking for a perfect home for 2 years in London where I could live like a human. This property was the first perfect house that corresponded to all my needs, and again, I missed it, a day before I was about to move in, after being annoyed by everyday calls to myself, my employer and landlord about referencing.

I just can't stand London with the same agents everywhere, with their methods of scheming and lying to the people.

I'm happy that it's just one year I have to stay in this city (because of my studies), I dislike London and every day I am dreaming about getting out of here and feel valued for being a human and for what I do. This city is a trap, full of liars that only want money and nothing else. You will never benefit from anything until you start lying as they do. I am kind to people and will never follow their steps.

Anyway, stay away from Townends, and stay away from London, if you can.

Townends are the most inefficient letting agency I have encountered.

For instance, on numerous occasions during the tenancy they were informed that they were sending emails to the wrong email address for one of the tenants and never made the appropriate change.

They are always hard to reach and don't seem to pass on the information requested onto the landlords when asked to do so.

Recently we have been in the process of renting a new house and the Guildford branch took it upon themselves to assume we had decided not to go for the property due to a massive price increase and did not get in contact with the landlords, as requested, to see if any renovations could be carried out. It is only after numerous phone calls that we managed to realise they had passed on the tenancy work to a new individual and had not contacted the landlords 4 days prior to the start of the tenancy. After a very unpleasant phone call with a very abrupt and and sarcastic tone from Townends we managed to get them to get in contact with the landlords. However, even though this was a matter of urgency, they only emailed the landlords and claimed to try and call them, which I highly doubt they ever bothered to do.

They are only money focused and have no care for their customers whatsoever. Their property management team is impossible to reach and they rarely ever reply to any emails or put things in writing unless you explicitly call them time and time again.