Sykes Cottages www.sykescottages.co.uk

We booked a Sykes Cottage in Devon, advertised as being wheelchair accessible. However, it most definitely was not. During our stay, we contacted the owners to complain, and they informed us they had already requested this issue to be corrected via Helpful Holidays, a sister company to Sykes Cottages.

The property also had noticeable subsidence, meaning we spent much of our time trying to adjust our seating positions, which was not only uncomfortable but also raised serious health and safety concerns. Unable to use my wheelchair in the property, I was forced to navigate without it, resulting in an injury. Upon returning home, I required hospital treatment.

We made multiple complaints to Sykes Cottages, but they have failed to respond meaningful to any of them. It has now been five months, and they have called me a liar, shown blatant disregard and discrimination for my disability, and refused to properly handle or even acknowledge our concerns. They’ve also declined to escalate the matter or provide further contact details.

I strongly warn others that this company has no care or consideration for its customers, particularly those with disabilities. They own a vast number of rental propertie sites, all of which I will now avoid at all costs. Sykes Cottages, I will see you in court.

Sykes Cottage's left us in a Cottage at the end of December on the North Pennine Moors with no central heating or hot water. They took 26hrs to respond to our situation- by which time we had tracked down the cottage’s owner and tried to resolve the situation. Unfortunately the heating/boiler could not be repaired and the owner was so sorry he promised a full refund.

Sykes as the booking agent decided they had done ‘All they could to help us’ so are keeping their 1/3 of the total, they have also kept a one off payment we were forced to pay after booking- we still don’t know what this amount of £33 was for but unless we paid it we would’ve lost the holiday so had no choice.

I can’t stress strongly enough to double check to see if you can book with someone else- better still try a direct booking. Sykes will take your money ONLY, as a ‘Booking Agent’ they have no use for you once you have paid, they are impossible to contact by phone unless you want to hold for an hour or so on their advertised numbers.

Their customer service team is aggressive and uncaring.

Beyond doubt they are the most awful company we’ve ever had the misfortune of dealing with- BEWARE and book elsewhere.

Let me start by saying that I review places A LOT, and I rarely give a rating below 3*.

I wish I had checked Sykes Cottages Google reviews before booking with them. Property (Shepherd's Retreat Hut in Cornwall) was falsely advertised by Sykes Cottages as having Wi-Fi.

Additionally, when we got to the property, there was an eco-toilet, which was not mentioned in the advertisement its standard to mention this feature, and we had ruled out other options because they had an eco-toilet.

The propertys kitchen was not clean to an appropriate standard there were crumbs across the surface, sticky rice in the chopping board and the utensils were not properly clean. I have coeliac disease, and any trace of gluten makes me violently ill, so this was a big concern for me. There were cobwebs across the property, demonstrating a lack of maintenance and cleanliness. On the day, we got contacted by the owner to let us know the previous guest had broken the blind in the bedroom.

She stated her husband was not able to fix it, but her son would come by later on to fix it when we got to the property, it had not been fixed, which meant we had no privacy inside the hut. The other side to the privacy issue was that the property advertisement was misleading in that it used language emphasizing the privacy of the garden and hot tub, including tactical angles on the pictures, when in reality, theres another hut right across from it, so every time youre outside at the same time theres essentially no privacy. The blind in the bathroom was also not working properly.

This trip was meant to be a relaxing experience to enjoy my birthday, and it just turned into a nightmare. I refused to spend my birthday in such a place, and we contacted Sykes Cottages exposing all the issues encountered.

They took responsibility for the false advertisement of the Wi-Fi and refunded us the booking fee - £42. They did not take responsibility for anything else and suggested we went back to the hut so the owners could attempt to make things right. We refused to go back and in hindsight my instinct was correct. I looked at reviews of their campsite Pattacott Farm Glamping and Camping (where the hut was located), and there were multiple 1 star reviews alluding to police presence, knives, and domestic abuse between the owners.

I wish I had checked these reviews beforehand. Sykes Cottages then said they would speak to the owner to see if they were willing to offer compensation. Surprise, surprise, they werent. And Sykes seem to find this acceptable.

Sykes Cottages and the owner of the property broke their own terms and conditions and yet refuse to refund me for the two remaining nights. We lost £311 for nothing!

Worst customer service I have ever come across.

I don't usually leave reviews (good or bad) but I feel I need to warn people about this company.

On arrival, the rented property was filthy; stains everywhere, dirty surfaces and disgusting carpet and bathrooms (you couldn't walk anywhere barefoot). When I complained to Sykes, they said to leave the key at the lockbox and a cleaner would be around at 1pm the same day. I waited at the lockbox for nearly 2 hours so that I could escort the cleaner to the property and show them the issues. Instead, they snuck in and did a cursory wipe of worktops and left. When I complained again to Sykes, another cleaner was sent the following day and again I waited at the property in order to point out everything that needed doing. A lovely lady came but she said she was only being paid to do surfaces and mop the kitchen floor (no other floors and no other cleaning eg the bathrooms) so that's all she did.

The second issue was that one of the toilets did not flush properly. The first maintenance person came and said there was no issue so when I complained again, a second maintenance person came, I pointed out the issue and he agreed the flush was not great. He also said that Sykes is happy to list properties that other companies would not.

The third issue was that I was being bitten in the night. Again, a pest control person came when I was out and confirmed there were no bed bugs or fleas. So how does one explain the bites every night?

I have wasted more than half of my holiday waiting for cleaners, maintenance and pest people and none of the issues have been fully resolved.

Each time you mention compensation, Sykes put up obstacles - this needs to happen before we have that conversation or that needs to happen before we can have that conversation.

The Sykes call handlers need to go on a customer services course. He said to me, "I'm not inclined" to help and when I said it is so hard that I feel I need to leave reviews about Sykes, he said, "you are entitled to your opinion". Wow. Scarlet was equally unhelpful. There is no empathy about the hell you are experiencing and no willingness to help. When I asked for a manager call back, there was only one attempt which I missed because we were busy on holiday (durrr). So when I asked again for a manager call back, I was told by the manager, "we don't chase you, we just try the once". Wow. And this is a "manager". Her full and final offer was £50. Are you kidding me?

I've booked multiple properties in the past through Airbnb and Booking.com and never had an issue. This was the first time using Sykes and I will never be using them again.

I suggest you steer clear of Sykes. The listings are misleading and if you have an issue, they won't be trying to help you. I guess their strategy is to make it so hard that it wears you down and you give up.

Taken money from my card without permission for bogus charges. Waited until taken to inform. Wont be using again.

If you do not have any issues with Sykes, they are good. However, should a problem arise, they show their only interest is your money. We wanted to cancel a property because we had been told that the neighbouring property would be undergoing months of construction work. We contacted Sykes but they refused to take any responsibility and we were left to without a refund. We shall no longer be using their services.

We made a booking through Sykes which was accepted and we received a confirmation email of our booking. A few months later we were told by Sykes that this was now cancelled as the owner had taken a personal booking and it was therefore now double booked and ours had to be cancelled.

The other options we had looked at were no longer available at this stage and whilst Sykes sent us some alternative options, none of these were of appropriate price, standard or location. We therefore had to book elsewhere and ended up paying double for the accommodation of our trip.

When talking to Sykes, we were told that it was completely at the owner’s discretion and they could accept and then cancel a booking whenever they liked with no repercussions. Obviously, this came as a huge shock to us as it is a terrible business model for anyone booking with them so we would highly advise against using this company, as we know companies such as Airbnb would not allow this.

R.e. compensation for our complaint, we were told Sykes could not do anything and it was entirely at the owner’s discretion, which obviously we never then heard back from. On investigation of this, we found this was a complete lie by Sykes (according to their terms and conditions found online) and they could provide us with 20% compensation following our complaint.

I have now tried to call Sykes a number of times and requested call-backs and nobody has contacted us.

We think this is completely unacceptable and would strongly advise people to avoid booking with this company at all costs.

My parents booked a cottage through Sykes: Thatched Cottage in Chipping Camden and had multiple issues with it including it being dirty, plumbing problems which left them without a bathroom for 3 days, garden very untidy and garden furniture rusty.The crockery was chipped and they had 3 separate visits from a rep and plumber to resolve the bathroom issue. It had not been made clear that the cottage is unsuited to the elderly due to uneven floors and steps into every room.

avoid at all costs - let out homes that are not fit for purpose - left without heating or hot water

Sykes cottages let us a holiday home that had no heating or hot water. - It is illegal to rent out a property that is not fit for purpose! Spent 3 days of our holiday ringing them and asking for this to be fixed but we were met phrases such as 'this is out of our hands' and plenty of excuses. The company won't even compensate us for those 3 days, they have offered a 25% refund for the 'inconvenience caused'. Absolutely awful company to to deal with from start to finish. Unhelpful staff, lack of communication and very hard to actually get hold of. The property itself aside from having no hot water or heating was also dangerous as live wires were sticking out of plugs etc. Things a managements company should not be over looking. I have nothing good to say about this company or the properties they 'manage' and I urge everyone to avoid booking with them.

Sykes let us know they had double booked the cottage 2 days before. Couldn’t offer us an alternative. 6 days on and they have still not refunded the payment. No Easter getaway for us this year.