Are B & K Estates Right For You?

KFH have let my flat in Balham over a number of years and I have always found the letting team very professional and helpful. Nothing is too much trouble and even on a difficult let, as I've just had, they remained patient and resourceful in order to achieve the best rent / tenants possible. Thanks very much to Will, Luke and Jack and the rest of the team.

It's difficult to articulate how terrible KFH are. I'd say that their service was poor, but that would suggest that they were merely incompetent, rather than actively dishonest. They'll encourage you to rent a supposedly furnished place, saying either that it'll have at least a wardrobe and some drawers by the time you move in, leaving you to discover that it won't, once you've put down the deposit, or that all the furniture in the flat is included, even though the majority of it belongs to the current tenants. They're happy to show people round without notifying you and to lie about this subsequently. Only one agent, who presumably wasn't slippery enough, faced any sort of penalty for this. They'll misrepresent contract negotiations to your landlord, presumably to gain more through new tenant fees, and become almost aggressive when you suggest that this isn't acceptable (on being asked why he'd misrepresented our requests and told our landlord that we would definitely break the contract before the end of the tenancy, Will declared that it 'wasn't done through spite or malice', which seemed rather odd). Dealing with estate agents is obviously not something anyone wants to do, but, from a tenant's perspective, both having rented through them and observed their untruth-riddled viewings to prospective tenants, I suggest you do all you can to avoid KFH. A look at the positive reviews on here reveals interesting similarities (dates, details), which would make sense if the service was consistently decent, but it's worth considering that this is a company that employs people that thinks lying about making telephone calls ("oh, er, you must just not have got the voicemail message...I don't know where it can have gone") and not checking appointment times with tenants is acceptable...

The best experience I have ever had with an estate agent (as a prospective tenant). Extremely responsive and helpful communication from Georgina, who listened to all our requirements, and organised an extremely efficient day of viewing. She was very quick to respond to all our queries, and make the process as smooth as possible. We were also very impressed and reassured by financial advice from Adam. Clear, friendly and helpful advice that left us feeling secure and well-prepared for the future. Very impressed to have this service from an estate agent.

Mine and my housemate's experience with Lauristons Wimbledon could not have been more disappointing. We contacted the agency to view a couple of properties and we were shown around by Georgina, who was lovely and very helpful, even when we wanted to view a property a second time. We decided to go for it and sign a contract, which contained some requests by us, and were agreed by the landlord. All the transactions and negotiation were done via the agency, we never contacted the landlord himself as we were never given his contact information and we were reassured by the agent that they would deal with everything for us. Some of our requests included replacing broken cupboards and drawers in the kitchen, fixing a fence in the back garden, and removal of some items of furniture that we did not want and for which we did not have the space. To our surprise, upon arriving at the flat for our moving in, that these requests had not been met. In addition, the property manager to whom we were assigned (Talibah) is the most unprofessional person we have ever dealt with. Even though we had confirmation from 2 people within the agency that the furniture was going to be removed and the repairs were in our contractual demands, their response was that the landlord did not want the items removed and there was no time to do the repairs before we moved in. After our insisting, we were told a different version of the story in which there was a delay in clearing funds from the landlord as we was abroad and had sent a check. We were never informed of the non-conclusion of the repairs prior to our moving in. There was never any kind of intention to review the emails that had been exchanged between us and the agency to investigate who was wronged and where. I have sent several emails to the admin team and they only have a one-note reply: "the landlord does not want these items to be removed". I feel like we were lied to in order to sign a contract, and now that we are tied up for 2 years they can say whatever they want. Long story short, it's been almost 4 months that we've been living in the flat and these requests are still pending. The kitchen cupboards have not been replaced yet and we still have some of our things in boxes. The fence in the back garden was boarded up by the neighbour from their side. The flat has been serving as a storage unit for the landlord's furniture. Don't make the same mistake as we did and go somewhere else.

Great service and very knowledgeable staff. Zara and Gabriella are amazing sales progressors and without their help I am sure that the sale would not complete! Most definitely the Estate Agent to recommend!

Absolute shocking, This company doesn't know its arm from its arse. Great at getting you into a property but once in absolutely no help. I would look to work with a better company.

The whole sales team at D&G Southfields were impeccable. Both very competent and very nice to deal with on a daily basis when selling our house. I couldn't recommend them highly enough.

I used D&G to sell my house in probably the most difficult market in decades. They sold my house where three other agents failed and did a great job. Nick (my main contact) was always communicative and available to speak to me even just to calm my nerves. Jack (another agent in the office who would help me when Nick wasn't around) was always friendly and helped where he could. He always knew who I was and did his best to sort out my issues/worries/requests. All the staff were friendly and helpful. The sale was smooth and easy and I put this mostly down to Nick who was not only dedicated to the negotiations but was constantly available and proactive throughout the whole process. I would highly recommend them.

Highly recommend Laurels without any hesitation.. Liam and Robert were both professional, helpful, reliable and always contactable. We highly recommend them whether you're looking to buy or sell! We cannot thank you guys enough for our fast and smooth first time purchase!!

A thoroughly stressful and unpleasant experience using Laurels. Rob at Laurels repeatedly let us down whilst marketing our property, Was unresponsive, often not responding to calls or emails. We have some suspicions of being misled or worse, lied to, regarding offers received on our property. I should stress these are suspicions at this stage and investigations into this are ongoing. In our opinion, the poor service from Rob at Laurels cost us a perfect home to move into and almost lost the seller of this home thousands of pounds through loss of a deposit. My personal recommendation would be to save yourself the stress and hassle and go with agents with a long track record of excellent customer service. In Epsom, Cairds are a much better agent in my opinion and charge the same fees as Laurels, or Greenfields in the Surbiton area. Please don’t be misled by the notion that Laurels are much cheaper than well established High Street Agents are this certainly wasn’t the case in my experience. My advice, avoid.

I have had a fantastic experience renting through Marsh & Parsons! Piers was very professional, efficient and listened to our requirements. I can honestly say he went above and beyond to find the right property for us. Further to this he was always on hand to answer any questions we had, no matter how small both before and after the deal was agreed. I have recommended Marsh & Parsons to my friends and will definitely use them in the future.

Unfortunately there is no option to select 0 out of 5 stars for this review, so to reflect the appallingly distasteful experience i have had to select 1 out of 5 stars. In effort to avoid posting an entire essay, I shall cut the long story short: Prospective tenant, put in an offer on a property which was subsequently accepted and went to contracts and referencing. Landlord pulled out of the deal during referencing (tenancy at this point was signed). Marsh and Parsons took the decision to retain 270.00 as an ‘administrative fee’ despite all documents I signed being peppered with “I also understand that should I withdraw from an accepted offer the administration fee of £225 plus VAT is non-refundable” – I would like to highlight again, that the Landlord pulled out of the offer. It is a massive shame that an Estate agency with such a large presence in London would conduct business in such an unethical manner, essentially trying to pull a fast one and keep money that they are not legally obliged to keep. Safe to say I will never deal with M&P again and would not recommend them to anyone. Unfortunately it looks like I will have to progress with legal proceedings.