Wensum Property Management, Norwich Letting Agency

I rented from Wensum Properties over 10 years ago, and still have occasional nightmares about it. Please don't think I'm overdramatising here. It was one of the worst experiences of my life, and it involved encountering a side of human nature which I hadn't previously experienced.

Put simply, they just don't care. If they bother to complete repairs at all, it will be shoddy and use the cheapest possible materials. I imagine many repairs go unreported to them, as the person who answered the phone in the Norwich office was one of the rudest people I have ever met. They will routinely not turn up to rental inspections at the time they specified, and will be completely unconcerned that they have wasted your time. They will be inaccurate to you about the move-in date, should you be unwise enough to actually sign a contract with them, leaving you with the real possibility of becoming homeless. If you phone them about anything at all, they will never call you back, unless you're asking to view one of their properties, in which case they reply immediately. They also have the nerve to offer some of the lowest-quality properties in the area, ones which other agencies would be ashamed of. The apartment block I lived in, all of which was owned by this agency, had serious long-term damp problems caused by cheap design and lack of ventilation. Most of it was riddled with mould and was an imminent danger to health. Their standard operating procedure seemed to be to pretend the tenants were to blame, and withhold their deposits because they had been "drying clothes inside the property" - a shameless line which unscrupulous landlords will be very familiar with. The place needed to demolished, so it's surprising to find that all these years later, they are still offering it for rent. So overall, unprofessional, dishonest, and with no concern whatsoever for human suffering or ill health. I have rented from many agencies over the years, and this one is absolutely the worst you could possibly imagine.

We have been renting from Wensum for the past six years. We love the location of our house and the neighbours but the service or lack service we have received should I say is very poor. Some examples are, we waited over a year, and that's no exaggeration for someone to come and fix our bathroom tap and the person who did come and fix it was the landlord as we contacted him directly. He was less than impressed as all the tap needed was a washer, the previous plumber had removed it and told us he needed some different parts, would order them and come fix it when they arrived. that was the last we saw of him. Also the brick wall in our garden has collapsed and has been for some time, its only four bricks high so I don't think they see it as a problem but the brick steps have also crumbled so it is no longer safe for my daughter to try and get to the bottom of the garden. There are plenty of other things but im sure you get the drift.If you also bear in mind that we have re carpeted the whole house and re turfed the lawn you would think they would at least take care of the rest but this is not the case. This is an honest review and in truth if we could afford to move we would, If you are looking for a cheap place to live then great but if anything goes wrong be prepared to wait a very long time for it to be fixed

Rented for a year and the property literally fell apart around us. Bodged repairs upon bodged repairs.

It took weeks to do even a minor repair done properly, so many attempts to get fixed were met with angry customer "service" staff.

Absolutely avoid as if your life depended on it.

We have rented from Wensum for nearly 2 years. The only gripe I have is occasionally they can be a bit slack at getting back to you from the Office but there is a particular lady who is always really helpful and gets things done if you do have any issues. Always had proper Contractors come out to fix things if something has gone wrong. Would quite happily stay with them for as long as possible.

Wensum Property Management:

If you don't have any problems with the property, you're fine.

If you do- don't expect to have anything sorted out.

We had problems with the boiler and the same guy that turned up to show us around the flat at the beginning of tenancy turned up with a spanner...

He said 'that'll do it for a while' - to which we asked when someone would coem to fix it properly. This never happened. So we never had a properly functioning boiler and often couldn't shower as it would stop working altogether for a day or two. After 2-3 calls a day to Wensum (also they rarely answer the phone...) and 2 or 3 visits other a few months - the problem was never resolved.

The worst part however was when they tried to withhold our deposit. I have rented 4 properties in total and never once had a problem, if anything we sorted out the mould problem that the property had and left it cleaner than it was! We contacted the deposit protection scheme to register our dispute with that they wanted to withhold (something ridiculous like 140 quid for cleaning charges - which they are not legally allowed to charge for if they have an in house cleaner, which they do).

After the deposit protection scheme contacted wensum about this they withdrew their order for cleaning charges and our money was returned. However, we were out of pocket for 4 months while the process went through and caused us unnecessary hardship.

I had a friend who rented with wensum who also experienced the same thing with holding back some of the deposit for no reason. I think they must just try their luck hoping you won't dispute it in order to get your money back straight away.

I have been looking for flats on rightmove and any that say wensum property management I won't even bother to look at even if they're cheap and look like nice properties - and this is from someone with fairly low standards as I don't have much money to spend on rent! Please avoid, you can't guarantee you won't have anything go wrong and when it does they won't be of any use!

we have just moved out of a property rented through wensum. only reason we moved is we are buying our own property. we had no problems with this agency and the accomodation was fine we would recommend

we too think people only write bad things on here we have been with these guys 15 years and are quite happy to stay longer

We rented a property from Wensum for just under 2 years - we stayed with them because the location of the flat was great and the rent very cheap.

The only problem, and it's a big problem, is their complete lack of customer care - when we called to get someone to fix something or to ask a question etc we would never receive a call back. They once gave us an hour's notice before sending someone over to view the flat (for use after us). Just to give you an example of how they operated, our boiler broke and Wensum sent someone out. It then took a further dozen calls before they sent anyone else out to actually fix the problem the first guy identified.

We also lost a fridge/freezer full of food when it broke whilst we were at work. We had to wait a week for a new one - not acceptable. Compensation for the expense of buying food every day fresh - nothing. Not even a kind gesture.

The mould problem was not fixed - and unfortunately I imagine they painted over it for the next couple when they moved in. I don't want to go on - you get the picture.

They may have improved - they certainly needed to

Hi yes we are still renting with these guys and have been doing so for 12 years and we too agree that people only say bad things on here and reading some of the reviews they are laughable as we have found wensum helpful and very supportive.

my family have been renting now for 6 years and we are reasonably happy

with this agent. We think only the bad ever appears on websites like this nobody bothers when things are ok