Atlantis Property Services - www.atlantisproperty.co.uk

In a few words:

They seem amazingly professional in the pre-contract stage, however since I signed and payed they totally ignore me. Initially I have asked written in the contract that my requirement is a professinal cleaning of the property. Instead of that the first day no one accompany me and I found the flat very dirty, including an old sofa full of dust(probably left on a warehouse for years), carpets were black from the dirt and around 10 other major issues. I have sent around 20-30 emails, numerous calls, visits in their office. They have ignored me. They do get paid from the landlord to manage the property so they are fully responsible.

They do have many properties in Reading, but try to avoid them bacause you are going to be in trouble.

Worst agents ever.

They were managing our propery building and are quite bad at maintaining it property. They couldn't fix the fault lift in our building since 1 year!! Even after charging hefty amount from each owner the lift it still dodgy, works for few days and stops again. Worst company ever.

The good

-They repaired stuff in good time when asked

-They were helpful in finding the property

The bad

- They tried to charge us unlawful fees

- They tried to make us pay for a utility bill (even though we had already paid them for it at a hefty mark up).

- They trespassed on our property by ignoring our request not to be disturbed even though they gave less than 24 hours notice

- They were very unhelpful when we have asked for them to compromise in any way (ie move the move out inspection time to one we can attend)

- They tried to violate our rights and when we put up valid arguments they often just ignored us - did not answer calls or emails.

- They have been extremely slow to repay our deposit, this might be due to slow moving landlord but this should not take months.

- They sent us a rent arrears notice for the period after we had moved out of the property.

I have both benefited from landlord management services and also a recent flat sale with Atlantis. I cannot commend their excellent service more highly and most recently have been most impressed with their Sales Negotiator. He clearly loves his work, and shows it with friendly and informative progress reports on your sale, and an instinctive judgement on the positive selling points for your property. However he really came into his own as a skilful and tenacious negotiator on behalf of the vendor and I congratulate him on the excellent result he achieved for us. Whenever I have called in at Atlantis offices in Reading, the staff have always been most courteous and efficient. OK - sometimes you do not receive an instant e-mail reply or phone call in response, but that is because Atlantis are a very busy outfit, which they deserve to be. My recommendation to their managers is - make sure you keep your gifted staff as they are a real credit to your business!

Upon ending our rental with Atlantis they withheld a reference from our new agent for nearly a month. We're about to be on the street because our new contract is not yet agreed!

Less than a week before our move to a new property Atlantis blackmailed me into paying £36 for a positive reference, else they would not do it. And we've ALREADY paid the referencing agency !

My experience with maintenance issues has been absolutely shocking, the house is an embarrassment, the toilets leak and never work properly. We live like pigs!

Their rental advert claims the house is much larger than it really is, and in fantastic 'refurbished' condition.

Absolute liars, they avoid communication with tenants as much as possible. Treat us like we're a dirty nuisance.

Will never employ them as an agent when we purchase our own property.

I feel cheated by them.

DO NOT, DO NOT USE ATLANTIS. It is incredibly unfortunate that Atlantis let some very attractive properties at decent rental prices. We'd heard bad reviews about Atlantis before renting a property through them. An acquaintance reported one of the property managers for allowing himself into the house at inappropriate times and harassing her. I believe said person no longer works there.

As for our experience with Atlantis, the viewing was brief, the agent showing us the property did not seem very knowledgeable and having then spoken with the landlord we find actually told us un-truths regarding the property. We had problems submitting our references, there was more than one person dealing with our references and each told us a different story as to where they were/why they'd not been accepted/what needed to be done. You may have problems submitting references if you are a contract worker and work for an Agency, at least I did.

The landlord informed us that although we were renting the property through Atlantis they would not be managing the property as they had done with the previous tenant, as in that case they'd not kept up their quarterly reviews, not informed him of issues with the property or the tenant and as such the property was left in an uninhabitable state when the old tenant left. We were to go through the landlord for everything as he did not trust Atlantis.

Atlantis's fees are incredible! Fees to get in the door and indeed, be prepared to lose £90 from your deposit whether the landlord agrees to have it returned in full, for their admin fees. It took months for us to have our deposit returned as the account manager did not inform us that we'd need to agree to this fee, nor were we given a realistic time scale. We were only informed that the reason for the hold up was because we hadn't agreed to the fee weeks after we'd moved out and Atlantis had received the landlords email confirming the deposit was to be returned, after we chased them for information!

But do not think that once your deposit has been returned (minus fees), the bills have been settled, the keys returned, that you are home free and out of there! Atlantis still managed to make life difficult after the landlord informed them he’d be renting the property privately without their destructive influence, once we moved out, they still interfered! Nearly two months after we move out, after we’d been communicating via our new address with the energy company to settle our final bill, a rather large bill addressed to no one, with a new account number, lands on the doorstep of the property. Needless to say this caused friction between us (the old tenants who are settling their account from their new address with the energy provider) and the landlord (trying to protect his new tenants from this random and rather large energy bill). It turns out that Atlantis had to stick their fingers into the pudding again! Under no instruction from us, the old tenants, the new tenants or the landlord, Atlantis told Spark Energy (whom they have a contract with) that the property would be changing energy suppliers, they then informed the current energy suppliers which caused this random bill to be sent out!

Atlantis have admitted fault, and have agreed to pay the random bill and settle the issue. Regardless, I spent half my morning calling Atlantis (only to be hung up on when I asked to be put through to the direct line of the property manager), calling the energy supplier and calling Spark Energy!

It has been in incredibly stressful and difficult relationship with Atlantis and one I will not be rekindling at any point in the future!

Atlantis are the worst letting agents I've ever rented from. reasons for why

1 The property I was renting from was left unlocked when i first arrived.

2 They tried to charge me for the previous tenants gas bill.

3 They left me with a broken oven for 11 months.

4 They failed to make an appointed and didn't contact me.

5 They told me my property came with an alarm and when I moved in they told me I couldn't have the code.

6 They rarely give you 24 hours notice when they want to come in the house.

7 they promised me long term let then broke the non cancellations policy and let the landlord sell the house after 11 months.

8 They never get your "email and phone calls".

9 They tried to commit fraud and charge me for a contract renewal I never received.

10 I had to wait three months to get my deposit back when there was no issues with the house when I left.

Along with there bad manners and unprofessional behavior they charge above average for everything. Even my landlord told me he was unhappy with there service.

WARNING TO EVERYONE DO NOT RENT OR LET YOUR PROPERTY WITH THESE PEOPLE

I have had a completely different experience of Atlantis, and they have asked me to write a review here because of the negative reviews from people. Both the vendor and my wife and I were desperate to push the sale of the property through as quickly as possible and the advisor we had was fantastic at driving the whole process forward. He liaised with solicitors on both sides and our financial advisor and ensured that there were no delays. He was always friendly, polite and very helpful and we are very grateful his work in helping us to purchase of our house. Without him, I have no doubt the process would have been a lot more unpleasant.

Worst estates I have ever used. Sleazy salesman Matthew who boasts about making money money money in the office to his colleagues in front of waiting customers. Once you are caught into the Atlantis trap they do not care about anything but receiving your rent. They give you an out of date inventory and threaten you with extreme actions when you try to rectify it. Whenever problems occur they constantly have an excuse for the delay such as we did not receive the e-mail or blame the landlord, when actually they have not done anything about it. Speaking to our landlord's handyman he agrees that Atlantis are the worst estate agents and that often he has to apologise for delays even though Atlantis take a couple of weeks to tell him. Atlantis will never apologise for any mistakes they make and believe leaving tenants with no hot water for more than 2 weeks is acceptable. I would stay away from them at all costs.

I have used Atlantis as a landlord and I can honestly say that landlords hate them as much as tenants! They provide a terrible service and see both landlords and tenants as cows to be milked for as much money as they can.