Northwood Estate Agents

I moved into a rental property two weeks ago, on the 3rd I came home to find my bathroom flooded with sewage. I called the management lady and she had no urgency about getting it sorted. It's still not been sorted so I live in fear of my bathroom flooding, I cannot shower because it doesn't drain. It's scheduled to be fixed today and I asked them to please make sure the shower drains properly before leaving as it's still flooding and the lady from Northwood scolded me for using the shower, called me inconsiderate and said I should be washing in the sink.

As well as this, they lied and said there was free parking at the property, which there is not, meaning i've spent £205 on a permit and spent £16 on my move in date using meter parking.

Lastly, I asked multiple times about broadband connectivity as I work from home and they told me the socket was in a cupboard in the living room. There is no socket there, and the socket I did find elsewhere in the property is not even connected so I've had no internet the whole time.

I know estate agents are known to be dishonest but this is a whole new level of bad.

They just commit to anything to get the deal/contract signed.

Please beware. For everything, they try to put blame on landlord and not ready to take any responsibility.

Please make sure you take extra cautious whilst dealing with Harrow Weald branch staff.

We live in one of their rentals for 3 years, and there were ceiling leaks during rainfall, damaging our belongings, blinds racked up with carpet tacks, yard and shed full of the previous tenants junk, dangerous decking, and broken boiler, which took weeks to fix. The broken shower was never fixed! They had the audacity to offer us £170 of our £1000 deposit, giving a made-up invoice of ludicrous amounts, which included replacing the filthy old blinds, disposing if the previous tenants’ junk, repairing 2 glass panes in some cheap (£10) interior doors, with an extortionate total of £830! Don’t rent or buy from these sham artists! You’ll get substandard properties that have been ‘patched up’, never repair essential maintenance, and they’ll mislead to keep your deposit!

We signed up with Northwood on their Guaranteed Rent scheme over 10 years ago when they were a well-run independent company and we were very happy customers. However, Northwood were taken over by the Belvoir Group some years ago and this is when we started to see a decline in performance. Changing agents is no simple task so we put up with this decline for many years but the incompetence and lies reached an unbearable level, so we were forced to move. I won’t go into details about their failings as there are so many, however, just to give you an idea, it was things like not paying the “Guaranteed” rent during Covid, quoting us £3300 for a central heating repair and the plumber we sent round fixed it for £120, but the worst part is when we tried to change agents, as they resorted to blackmail and carried out a forced eviction of the tenants against our wishes and despite one of the tenants being treated for Cancer (of which the new), let me explain more.

After taking the final decision to leave Northwood, we employed a new agent to take over the tenants (switch service), however, Northwood had a clause hidden in the contract so they can evict the tenants before handing the property back, which they again explained this would cost me lots of money to move away, hence I should stay with them. I explained this was exactly the reason that I could not stay with them and even if they offered their services for free, I would still leave as their code of conduct was despicable. I explained that the tenants had done nothing wrong to Northwood and they do not deserve to be punished, but they proceeded to evict the tenants out of spite.

I spoke to the tenants to warn them of what was happening and the single mother of 3 children explained it was terrible timing as she was currently undergoing chemotherapy for Cancer. I promptly got in touch with Northwood to explain this and that they could not evict them as it was so cruel, but they issued the eviction letter a few days later anyway. I tried to work out with the tenant that they could stay after the eviction notice, but Northwood had this boxed off in their contract also, hence the eviction was carried out.

I lost many nights of sleep worrying about the tenant’s eviction and I tried all sorts of options to allow them to stay, but nothing could combat the Northwood contract, even my solicitor explained the contract was extremely unfair as it did not have any reasonable get out clauses, hence there was nothing I could do.

So my advice is that you avoid falling into the Northwood trap, as it is literally a trap which will punish both the landlord and tenant should you realise they are not capable of fulfilling a letting service and choose to leave.

But more importantly, if a company has staff who are happy to evict a single mother of 3 who is unwell, just out of spite, then even if they were the best letting agent in the world, this totally cruel behaviour should never be rewarded.

I have been a tenant with them for 6 years and they are just a nightmare. Any maintenance jobs take ages in my case a year to fix and still not fully sorted. They put rent up when the landlord has not requested it or wants it. The increased house inspections from yearly to every 3 months no reason given and my home is immaculate. Very rude staff who really not interested in what you have to say it's just all about how much money can they make out of the property the landlord and the tenant don't matter to them at all. Avoid at all costs

AVOID AVOID AVOID! We have had the WORST experience selling our property with this company. 15 months down the line and we have changed estate agent due to Northwood’s incompetence.

Our first sale was agreed based on Northwood seeing the proofs to fund the sale from the buyer, 18 weeks later we discovered our buyer wasn’t proceed-able on completion week and the original proofs that had been “seen” were suddenly missing! Our buyer actually had a house to sell and had in fact told Northwood this who never mentioned this to us until completion week after they had only recently marketed the buyers property and were obviously trying to secure double commission!

Second sale fell through after horrific sales progression. Had to chase every single day for an update, which we never actually got, and was spoken to rudely by sales progression staff member. If updates had been obtained sooner we wouldn’t have been so close to completion again before finding the sale wasn’t going to go ahead.

Last week we discovered our last buyer had sold again and so was proceed-able but had been told by Northwood we were unwilling to sell our property, a complete lie probably fabricated because we had come off the market with Northwood and switched to a more reputable estate agent.

Staff continuously talk bad of each other off and blame each other. Staff from the Goole office seem to have quit their jobs on mass and we are advised this is due to what is going on within the company.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go somewhere else and pick a more professional estate agent.

Nightmare company. Do not use.. Can’t trust them an inch. Incompetent, cheating, obstructive and zero customer service.

We were with them for many years as they acted as my letting’s agent. Then the Torquay office closed due to some fraud. So was “run” from Exeter. This is when the nightmare began.

This meant they stopped doing any house inspections, didn’t fix the smoke alarms or faulty mains for over 2 years after were told needed doing. Tried to charge 5-7 times normal cost for any repairs. Then when told we were changing companies, got nasty and openly made up claims, got obstructive, refused to help in any way.

We asked each year if rent should be increased. They always said no, would be too much. Then did so behind our back and did not pass on to landlord. This went on a few years until we got other quotes which were much more in tune, cost us a fortune. Similar to their sale estimate, was 40k adrift from reality.

We had the misfortune of renting a property through Northwood in Watford. We agreed to pay them to relet the property early as we had a house purchase. The property has been on the market for 3 months and the post is piling up behind the door, including over 40 letters from rival agents to the homeowner expressing surprise that the house is not relet and asking to take over.

There is clearly a huge demand in the housing market but this useless agent can't let the property, and appear to have made literally no effort to do so. Every time I go to check on the property the post is undisturbed on the mat inside. They also have started just ignoring my emails. They claim that someone tried to let the property who has 10 cats - as an explanation for why the property is still unlet after 3 months of marketing. This frankly ludicrous explanation just shows you all you need to know.

Avoid.

Awful letting company. We've been renting for a combined 16 years, never missed a rent payment or had deposit deductioned, yet northwood are by far the worst "company" we've had the pleasure to rent from. Most positive reviews are from landlords they represent, not tenants they let to. Will regularly break contractual clauses, no check-in inventory given, harasses tenants with near monthly inspections. Refused to fix the mold issue at the property and try to charge you for the damage. Tried to keep over half the deposit but when disputed kept less than a quarter. House was freshly painted when we moved in and they did the same when we left. Painting over the mold and rising damp in the process. Paint would drip off the walls with amount of damp, mold and water ingress. Avoid letting from them, and if you have to, take lots of photos, document any problems you have with them because you'll need it when you move out. Good luck

Asked me for a guarentor because I claim benefits which I can't provide and which is a ridiculous difficult request, but I'm sure they know that and thats why they ask. So in short they are bigoted and discriminate against people on benefits. How lovely