Regent Estates, Berkhamsted

Absolutely terrible service - avoid at all costs. To start, when I viewed the property, it was with a weekend staff member who knew nothing about the facilities, parking, or any of the usual questions someone would have about a flat. Luckily for them the property was lovely and sold itself.

Then, during every piece of communication following this we would have to chase repeatedly for responses to queries. When we moved in, we found out there was an ongoing issue with the water pipes for the flat which we had not been told about despite Regent knowing about this for three months prior to us moving in.

Finally, after leaving the property and being in a deposit dispute, this has lasted 3 months, with us often not getting email responses back for weeks at a time, being told a second contractor quote would be obtained and never seeing any evidence of it.

Terrible, unprofessional service from start to finish.

I completely agree with the first reviewer. Regent Estates are incompetent, officious (without being efficient), and rude and I would strongly recommend not renting from them.

We rented a property from them for 3 years and would have moved earlier had we not been saving for a deposit because it was so unpleasant an experience dealing with them. They were inefficient in the exteme, only ever dealing with a small proportion of the issues we had with the property. They were constantly rude on the phone and

invasive of our privacy. Going so far as to insist on coming for a 'quarterly inspection' just 2 days after I had given birth and then to top it all off they attempted to keep over half of our deposit for highly flimsy ludicrous reasons, and when we challenged them resorted to lying and attempted bullying tactics.

Do not rent from them. They are awful.

In short, I have been absolutely disgusted with the manner in which Regent Estates have conducted themselves and the poor customer service provided. I would strongly advise anyone looking to sell or buy a property in Berkhamsted to avoid using Regent Estates.

With regard to letting the flat, I am still trying to ascertain whether they conducted quarterly checks of the property, as their contractual obligations required. Additionally, when a couple of things went wrong with the property, Regents were slow to inform me, delaying the time it took me to resolve issues. I had concerns over how they conducted the check out; the tenant actually phoned me to apologise for how she felt Regents had misrepresented her position with regard to the check out date. Overall, on the letting side of things Regents made me feel as though they were doing me a favour simply by answering the phone and talking to me.

In terms of selling the property, the care and attention to detail a seller would want an agent to demonstrate, were lacking. I had to ask Regents to take new photos of the flat (they were using my old photos), to provide square footage dimensions and details of an external storage room. On one occasion, a potential buyer wasn't shown the additional storage room, despite phone calls I had made to confirm Regents were aware and had access to the unit.

After eight weeks I took the property off the market. Although Regents had secured offers, they had failed to negotiate sale of the flat and I had lost confidence in their ability to do so. I had to re-advertise the property within twenty eight days so as not to loose the validity of the then Home Information Pack. As such, I put the property back on the market with Oakleys approximately three weeks later. They agreed a sale with buyers that had originally viewed the flat with Regents. On discussing this with Regents, negotiations became markedly distasteful. I was accused of 'cloak and dagger' manoeuvres behind Regent's back and arranging for the re-sale of the property whilst the flat was still on the market with Regents. Those accusations were completely false and I found them offensive.

Oakleys obtained a higher asking price than Regents were able to and the buyers were reluctant to deal with Regents. Despite Oakleys having to complete the negotiations and manage the sale of the property, Regents refused to negotiate a split fee and threatened to take me to court. Having sought legal advice, I found myself in the situation where the sale would have completely fallen through had Oakleys not offered to complete without charging a fee. I seriously doubt that Regents would have even considered such an offer if the roles were reversed.

I sorely wish I had never come into contact with Regent Estates. I hope others can learn from my experience and avoid making the same mistake.