Martin & Co

We used Martin & Co earlier this year to sell our home and would not hesitate to recommend them. Given the good experience we had, we have recently purchased a buy to let property and have placed this with them too.

Amazing agents, fix problems quickly, always reply to emails and have done everything extremely professionally. Agents / landlords get a bad reputation in London but I've found M&C to be the best I've dealt with in years.

Management of the apartment has improved markedly in the past few months.

Amazing company to deal with. James and David were extremely helpful. Their knowledge of the local property market is just simply exceptional! Changing agents was the best decision I have made this year. If you are looking for an honest hardworking agency who look after both their landlords and tenants then look no further! Highly recommended!

Very happy with my experience with Martin and Co. Our manager (James) was very hospitable and responsive and has shown a great duty of care in helping us get settled. Highly recommend.

I've dealt with these guys for many years and they continue to impress and surpass every expectation. I have no hesitation in recommending them, and have done so on many occasion.

I have worked with James and David for a number of years now managing property for us and our clients. Always on hand to offer help and advice where required placing tenants. Keep up the good work!

Great property management company. Have used them for years.

Excellent letting and management service. always attentive and available. would recommend for any in or out of country landlord.

Critical: Professionalism The agent we had was extremely unprofessional. She constantly ignored serious maintenance complaints. Her communication was always slow and disrespectful. Due to the terrible experience with our agent we did not continue our stay at the flat.

I don't know if the COVID situation was the reason why, but my experience with them could be sum up like 'slow': I had to insist every time I needed to change deposit amount, update tenant details or fix the house. It's fair to say that my previous housemate was very happy with the same agent. At the end of the tenancy, I had to wait 19 days to get my deposit back. My landlords were the best, so kind and comprehensive, but the process through the agency was quite different.

Absolutely great from start to finish, Cerys was amazing and incredibly patient with helping me relocate from London, and was hugely understanding when the terrible traffic meant I was late for my key collection. Can recommend highly enough! A massive thank you Cerys is a star!

We went to view a property today and we was greeted by Ben Mceneaney from Martin & Co, he was very welcoming, helpful and professional full off knowledge and understanding, answered all the questions we asked, by far the best experience we've had from any estate agents. A real asset to Martin & Co, thank you for all your help.

This is the worst and most unethical estate agent I have ever encountered. From the moment I first contacted them to view a flat they have been a disaster. Not turning up to viewings not returning calls After seeing it I was keen to buy. I said I wanted it and was told no one else was interested. It was shared ownership and I had to be vetted by their financial adviser which I did.

After qualifying and registering with the housing association I was ready to pay the reservation fee and rang up the person at the office and was told she was on a call and I asked to be rung backThis was a Friday. When no call came I e mailed saying please ring urgently. No call. I then received an email on the Tuesday telling me someone else had reserved the flat and it was no longer available When I spoke to them all I got was lies and cover ups from the top down. DO NOT DEAL WITH THIS COMPANY They are dishonest incompetent and totally unethical

I have an application to rent a property at Lode, Cambridge and paid the application fee of J350 and my problems started from then on. I have had to chase them for reference check and then the referencing company for status. No response to my mail or calls from the Martin & Co people and even after 20 days, the tenancy agreement is not done and I am less than one month from the agreed tenancy date.

They are not at all bothered to complete the application process and don't care as all they are interested in the application fee. Having fed up with calling them and chasing them over phone, I decided to move on and cancel my application as they simply couldn't complete the process in time (In fact, they have not managed to complete the agreement). Now, they say, they won't refund me the J350 after causing delay and waste of time and energy and mental stress to me during the past 20 days of calling them and chasing them. All I can say is BEWARE OF THIS COMPANY. Never go with this company...Never..

Regards,

Madhu

The rudeness I've experienced from the Martin & Co staff is shocking and disgusting. Both Reading and Witney branches have been extremely unprofessional and discriminatory. Do not use them despite their massive advertising budget and outlandish claims of being number one. There are so many better agencies employing friendly people who know how to do their jobs.

Try to avoid this lettings agency. Three reasons why you should avoid this company?

1. Rented room without heating. To repair it took 3 weeks.

2. Two times entered my room without 24 hours notice and without permission.

3. On contract we agreed, that in property will live no more than 4 people. From the very first day in property lives 5 people and it makes hard to use shared areas e.g. Kitchen, bathroom, living room. And also makes more noise. This is only main reasons you should avoid this lettings agency.

Myself and my partner called Martin & Co's offices a number of times in order to arrange a flat viewing. At first, we had been put through to the wrong office location and the staff on the other end were not sure that there was a Glasgow City office and offered to Google it for me to find the contact details, which I found very odd. When we eventually found the correct number to dial, as I say above, both myself and my partner called to arrange a viewing However, the office were unable to help us at all with setting up a viewing unless the agent was present in the office, leaving us wondering the point in employing office staff to answer calls.

After several unsuccessful attempts, we were given the agent's mobile number to call him directly. As such, myself and my partner called to arrange a viewing (via speakerphone) and set up a viewing for the following Tuesday. Given there was quite a gap between our call and the viewing time we checked that Tuesday would be the very first viewing as we were keen to see the flat early.

The agent confirmed the date and time twice with us and we updated our work diaries to ensure we could fit it in, as we currently live and work in another city. The day of the viewing arrived, and when I called the agent to confirm the viewing for that evening, I was told that the viewing had been on the previous night. When it was pointed out to the agent that he had advised us of the date and time, the agent became angry and very rude, blaming it on us.

When asked why he did not even offer us the courtesy of calling to confirm the appointment or check why we had not arrived, he became more aggressive and very argumentative. The service we received from the company was shocking, the office staff were unable to help with even simple queries like arranging viewings, and the agent was extremely argumentative and rude on the phone - definitely an agency to avoid if this is how they treat potential clients!

We have just rented a house through Matthew and he was fantastic from start to finish! We had totally lost faith in the local lettings agents but I can't fault this branch. Thank you for a stress free, informative and speedy move in. I will recommend you guys to my friends. And you right, the patio really is a sun trap! All the best,

Phil and Mark

Do not believe what you are told by the Martin & Co Newport branch. We are renting a property from them and agreed everything with one person who then left. Unfortunately the handover can't have been that great because we then saw the property back on the market. After a number of phone calls we got it sorted again but we have had various problems...

Confirming a moving-in date (was confirmed 3 days before after we pressured them).

They didn't seem to understand that a tenant needs time to organise the move so a confirmed date as soon as possible is essential. Customer service is not great - they seem friendly enough but are very slow at returning calls or getting answers for you. It usually takes a few phone calls asking for the same thing before you get an answer. When we made the application I had been made redundant (although got offered a new job about 3 weeks before we moved) and my other half is self employed so we offered to pay 6 months rent up front - on the condition that it was held by Martin & Co and paid monthly to the landlord.

Initially they said they'd have to give it to the landlord but after telling them this is not normal practise and not what other agents do, they agreed they would hold it. After paying the 6 months we asked for them to confirm in writing where the money was being held but it never was, and we've now found out they paid the whole lot to the landlord.

So now, if anything goes wrong and doesn't get fixed, or the landlord doesn't pay the mortgage and the house gets repossesed, we have no recourse. The other thing to watch out for is the schedule of condition and inventory. We received this about 2 weeks after we had moved in and it was absolutely apalling. The person doing it must have been half blind.

Example - the report said the kitchen tiles are in good condition. In fact, the kitchen tiles must be at least 30 years old, probably more, so there is a lot of wear showing as well as a few chips and in one part of the kitchen there is a square of 6 - 8 tiles missing with just concrete showing. There are many more examples like this so we made sure we went through it thoroughly and wrote a lot of comments, although I still worry we might have missed a couple of things.

We are going to take photo's of some of the things that are not in great condition so we have proof... Sounds like we might need it with Martin & Co. If Martin & Co Newport read this, I suggest you change the inventory checking company that you use. We are renting out our own house in a different area and the inventory/condition report was excellent and accurate - and actually in favour of the tenant, to the point where it said the bathroom blinds were dusty and they were brand new, only put up 5 days before the check was done!

I would not recommend using Martin & Co Newport branch until they realise and put into practise the fact that tenants (and landlords) are paying them for a service and they should treat us as customers. Reading some of the other reviews, it might be a good idea after moving out of a property that you have taken the time to clean, to take photo's to prove it is clean - or a video might be an even better idea.