Barnard Marcus - www.barnardmarcus.co.uk

I rented my flat with Barnard Marcus, and the whole experience has been appalling. They lied about the tenants' referencing details, didn't do anything when the rent was not paid, I went to court myself to evict the tenants. Then Barnard Marcus made it difficult to get the deposit. Every department is staffed by rude, incompetent numpties who just try to fob you off. They were worse than useless, I have of course fired them and am now renting the place out myself, saving £100pcm on the 'management fee' and a lot of hassle.

Hello

I sold my property through the Redhill branch. I was buying a new home from David Wilson Homes (DWH)under their Movemaker programme. As per this, David Wilson Homes sold the property and the estate agents fee was to be paid by them. David Wilson Homes instructed Barnard Marcus (BM) for the sale of my home. However, after the sale of my house, Barnard Marcus invoiced me through my solicitor which was not correct and against the sales contract. My solicitor paid them from my account ( my solicitor over looked it despite my repeated emails and phone calls). When I pointed out this to my solicitor, he demanded for the refund of the estate agents fee. Then Barnard Marcus was saying they will not refund until they get the estate agents fee from David Wilson Homes. Then they send one more invoice in my name to the builder (DWH). The builder pointed out that they themselves have to be invoiced instead of me. Finally BM send another corrected invoice to DWH.

Once DWH received this invoice, they promptly paid BM. However, I am still waiting for my refund from Barnard Marcus. It has been more than seven weeks since I sold my hose, I am still waiting for my refund (of £6990). BM continues to give some excuse or other for the delay in refund that they have collected illegally. Now they are holding twice the amount that they are entitled to.

I would not use them again.

We recently used the Richmond office of Barnard Marcus and they helped us to find our lovely new flat. I just wanted to say that the person I dealt with has been wonderful: he is professional, efficient, helpful, friendly and good humoured – he also has the patience of a saint! If our agent wasn’t available, his colleagues were invariably very helpful too.

The only downside of our experience was having to wait ten days for the return of some money owed to us, which I think is way too long. (In fact, I have been informed that they are currently trialling a same-day “faster payments”

system, so that they can do away with BACS transfers altogether

which take a few days to clear.  They think this should  work well once

they fully roll it out.)  However, upon chasing this up, the customer service, from the person we dealt with all the way to the Area Director, was exemplary. In light of this, I am not inclined to reduce the star rating I’ve given them: 5* all the way. Thank you to Barnard Marcus and, in particular, Richmond branch.