Ashton Burkinshaw Estate Agents Review

Overall Rating

None

See general comments

If you rent through Ashton Burkinshaw Estate Agents and have a problem with anything in the house (i.e. boiler, fixtures, white goods) do not expect them to help. They never return calls, always have to be chased, try desperately to get you off the phone by giving non-committal answers to questions, and most of the time ask you to sort out the problem yourself! What is the point in paying them money each and every month if they are not going to provide the service they are paid for?

After having no hot water for FOUR WEEKS, the people in the branch knew my voice quite well. I am new to the area and do not have friends and relatives to turn to in these situations to use their shower etc., so in order to wash, both myself and my partner were forced to travel to the local swimming pool every weekday to use their facilities! In the end, the delay turned out to be due to the plumber ordering a part, which (due to them not listening over the phone) was not even needed!

Our extractor fan in the kitchen has been broken for FIVE MONTHS due to an electrical fault, and is now resulting us having to disinfect the ceiling and walls weekly to stop mould developing - they say that the landlord will not authorise the maintenance - I'm sure my deposit will be dented when I leave my property, and for damage caused by something they have done nothing to fix.

Members' Comments ondave99999999's Review

• dave99999999 on 5th Jul 2007

  Further to my review, we have since moved out of our home and rented another home through a different agency. the reason? we were given our notice to leave due to the landlord wishing to sell the property - fine, so we set about looking for another home eventually choosing one that is not even nearly as nice as our previous one and considerably more expensive. Imagine our surprise when we were called by AB to find out if we were OK with having a few viewings through them... strange we thought, as they do not sell properties... so we asked what the situation was, surprise, surprise the landlord had decided to put the property back on the lettings market at a slightly increased price (although considerably cheaper than the new property). this to my mind begs the question "why were we not asked whether we would like to remain in the property?" we had after all been there for 18 months, had never missed or been late on any rent payments, had never received any complaints from neighbors and had not damaged the property in any way - in fact we had invested money into the place, especially the garden.
  
  Reason - because they either hadn't thought to ask or had forgotten to ask. This is to my mind complete madness from a business point of view. they have just lost a very good customer who never caused problems for the business or the landlord and have put the owner in a position where he is now going to face an untold period of covering the costs of an empty property.
  
  In a nutshell, Ashton Burkinshaw have failed all three parties in our arrangement. They have failed me because i did not want to leave and have had to spend a lot of time and money going through a move that was not needed. they have failed the landlord because he has lost a reliable and trustworthy tenant and they have failed themselves because they now have an empty property, an unhappy tenant, and unhappy landlord and an unhappy manager because they are no longer receiving our money.
  
  how can a business run in this way? the dealings that i have had with them have been nothing less than shockingly bad - and that is not an exaggeration. i hope that the managing director of AB,reads this and realizes that the franchised branches she has allowed to use her good name are in fact dragging it through the mud. The Tonbridge office of AB are a joke, i will never recommend them to anyone and they will never receive any business from me so long as i live.
  
  further to this the problems mentioned in my first review were still not fixed on the day i left, extremely bad form when they were charging me a fee each month to live in a "fully maintained property" - that touches on fraud if you ask me.