I am reviewing Alex Desmond's service from a property buyer's perspective. Alex is the sales agent from William H Brown who showed me the property that I am about to purchase in St Albans. Alex was very flexible and managed to fit me in for a viewing, at a very short notice. He did not try to oversell, allowing me to make my own judgment while pointing out the attractive features of the property, professionally. He helped expedite the back & forth between me and the vendors and we arrived at a agreed sale price within less than 24hours since first viewing. I would recommend Alex Desmond of William H Brown estate agency wholeheartedly!... Read more
110 days ago
Avoid these guys like the plague!
Myself and my wife found a property with WHB using Rightmove. At first they were really nice and efficient to show us the house. As soon as we put an offer forward it all started going terribly wrong and never got better. First, they increased our offer to the landlord by £50 without our consent, which obviously made the landlords very happy and unwilling to take any less, when we queried this obvious mistake, the agency justified it saying that it was because we own a dog, which was certainly not the reason as we met the owners and were perfectly happy with us and the dog.
Secondly, as we did the referrals we started getting tonnes of unwanted publicity from various suppliers who had obtained our personal data from the referencing agency.When we complained about this they just excuse themselves saying it was not them but a third party working on their behalf, shocking!
They were terrible to negotiate the agreement with the landlords and kept calling us at work to do their job and track down the referrals from our previous agency, although we paid £120 for that service!!
Just to finish it, instead of accepting a money transfer they suggested paying by card on the day we collected the keys, to which we agreed. Once at their offices they took our cards and overcharged us by £800!!! It might not be much for many people, but when you are moving paying thousands in fees, rent and deposit, £800 make a massive difference. The method they used to charge us with the card did not require PIN, so we could not verify the amount before they charged it. To all this, the office manager barely apologies and said we would check it on Monday next week, rather than trying to sort out something there and then.
On Monday the following week, they did not even bother to give us call to let us know they were on the ball and chasing the matter urgently, and when we called to query they were less than helpful.
Overall, you can see that as most letting agents (this one in particular), they just continue on business by the shear amount of demand there is and because as a tenant you are forced to pick from the least crappy one out there. These guys are slow, inefficient, and not bothered on giving a good service. If you can, try to avoid them, if you cannot, tread very carefully and don't assume they are doing their job; just like a lazy mule, they need a few whiplashes to react.... Read more
2006 days ago