John Shepherd Estate Agents - Birmingham Omdömen 182

Be warned and stay well away. For context, they were advertising apartments in a block and we were told not to be concerned about the flat number itself when signing the paperwork as they're "all exactly the same" and are going quicky so the number you are given may differ depending on the time the contract is drawn.

Here is a drafted email which sums up my experience:

Hi [John Shepherd Property Manager]

Previously, I had been lied to about the property through the false-advertising as well as verbally (with the property being advertised/listed online as having 2 bathrooms, being told I am paying for two bathrooms, being shown 2 bathrooms during the viewing, but being given a number 7, a flat I was never shown with 1 bathroom on move-in day) but for which I have not pursued legally due to the contract stating flat 7 at the time of signing and for the sake of minimising stress. I did already bring this up on move-in day, first via phone-call and then via email to one of your colleagues.

The advertising, as well as the organisation told me I would have on-site parking. You are now accepting that this too was another example of false advertising and mis-selling as my particular landlord for the property you chose to give me in the end does not have a parking space associated. This again shows a lack of transparency and that all the flats are not the same misleading me again.

I have attempted to be extremely reasonable despite the opaque responses and misinformation involved, and find myself being pushed into taking further action.

I know you may not personally have been involved some of what I have mentioned above, however you are managing the property and representing your organisation.

Please also let me know in writing if there is nothing further you are willing to do as an organisation to resolve the matters stated above without the involvement of external parties.

Kindest regards,
[Name hidden]

Do not rent a property from them! The worst lettings agents in the country! Nor should you trust them to look after your property.

A very bad experience.

I rented my apartment from the Birmingham office in January 20, 2023. I moved in and discovered the boiler and heating was not working. It took two weeks to get it fixed after reporting on the office channel and contacting the office several times. I had to stay in a hotel after paying for an apartment to protect my minors from catching a cold and cold related illnesses. A compensation was promised in the form of discount from my landlord but till date, I have not received a dime.
All through my stay at the property, the heating in the house never worked properly, the rooms were infested with mould, even after using mould spray opening the windows regularly, mould was and is still a recurring issue in the apartment. I reported to my property manager, someone came and inspected the property. I was told it would be treated from its source and that was the last I heard about the mould.

I got fed up with all of the issues with the apartment, I gave the company two months notice as stated in our letting agreements, followed the checkout procedures stated by my property managers Kai Roodney and Caitlin Lemon, did the cleaning with the company approved cleaning company and a report was sent.
An email response and pictures was sent to me by my property manager Caitlin Lemon stating that the property was ok and was waiting for a partial contribution from the landlord.

From August since I moved out till date, I have been waiting for a response after that email, I am yet to receive another email. I have called the office several times, emailed the property managers involved. I also copied Drew Sawdkins who was the letting manager that finalised our letting contract and was also the person who received my keys at check out. As we speak, I am yet to get an email response after sending several, my property manager and supervisor are yet to respond to any of my calls after promising to respond as they are always in a meeting or too busy to respond. I have had to wait for 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes and more to speak with them. The call logs can be checked if my calls have been returned. No email has been sent saying where we are and when my deposit will be refunded. I guess it’s because I am of ethnic minority that I am being treated this way.

My advice to any intending tenant to rent a property from John Shepherd is a big NO, ABORT. Take your time and money elsewhere as they are not worth the trouble.

The process of booking a viewing and the viewing itself was perfect from start to finish. Very responsive and knowledgeable.
The young estate agent that met me there Turkay was warm, welcoming and made us feel at home.

I don’t leave reviews very often but John Shepherd West Bridgford deserve one. I am absolutely disgusted with this unregulated letting market, trying to remove deposit money for 2 small plastic cracks in a fridge freezer and saying they will need to replace both from our deposit money. Furthermore saying they will need to have it re-cleaned despite us paying £180 for two cleaners to spend 3 hours cleaning it professionally. Prior to this when we lived in the flat we had a low water pressure problem which took them over 4 months to fix, they came up with excuse after excuse before finally offering to fix it a few weeks before we moved out (only because we had to get the council involved to sort it). We then moved into another property with them where the oven had not been cleaned (see pictures attached) yet was told it was just cleaning residue. Also the dishwasher that did not work, we were originally told to try to fix it ourselves? Thirdly in our contract it makes reference to a washing machine, yet no washing machine was present and we had to spend hundreds to buy our own. I cannot believe what these agencies try to get away with, I highly doubt they would even replace the fridge and freezer for such a small crack and new tenants who will soon move in, they just want money money money! Disgusting.

Grateful for the outstanding service provided by Caitlin MacDonald, managed to close multiple cases in timely manner.
Additionally showcased great professionalism and communication, also flexible during her time off.

Wish her a successful career and would be more than happy to collaborate with her in the future.

Very much appreciated

Paul

Turkay was professional and very knowledgeable of the properties during our viewings.

I’ve been renting with John Shepherd since May 2022 & it’s been a breeze. In particular, Caitlin MacDonald is fabulous at keeping me informed of any checks, following up repairs & other activities required for renting. She’s always professional, efficient & lovely to interact with 😃

Miss Caitlin lemon

Thanks a lot for your effort and work, you did a a hard graft. I highly recommend her to deal with in any issues regarding property management. We appreciate your work with us. Thank you👋

Caitlin MacDonald has been brilliant - so helpful and ‘on it’. I have been really impressed with all the service I have received. Thank you so much!!!

If I could post ZERO stars I would. Absolutely abysmal service from start to finish. Zero customer service. It's hard to tell if their staff is strained to be unhelpful or just plain stupid, such is the degree of their incompetence. This business needs to be avoided. Sadly as with many in this industry, very little checks and accountability is possible so they keep on treating clients with contempt.

I wish to give David Rose a five star rating. He is the best employee at JS. He is very responsive and helpful. He is a big contrast to his predecessor who never answered my phone call and very rarely responded to my emails. The managers at JS never responded to my emails either. So David really stands out in this organisation.
Thank you David!

My lease for the apartment from another estate agent was taken over by john shepherd in feb 2024 and Caitlin was absolutely wonderful and helpful. She was always responsive in emails and answered questions if needed . That’s a totally completely different experience from the previous estate agent . Well done Caitlin .

The seventh ring of Satans anus has nothing on how terrible this Estate agent is!

Condescending senior property manager
Took over previous contract. Clear communication issues on handover. When I mentioned more than one month he replied with 'months' in quotation marks. Happy to not deal with this rude business going forward :)

With the rental market fast becoming a zero profit and for many professional landlords a loss making business ...attention to detail is critical. Caitlin Macdonald and johnshepherd have remained attentive, proactive and thorough in the delivery of landlord management services greatly helping me to ride out these very difficult times.
Thank you.

John Shepherd recently took over the management of my property in Birmingham. Immediately there has been a radical improvement from the previous agent. The responsiveness from Caitlin MacDonald and Drew Swadkins has been second to none. They found a replacement immediately and have been extremely helpful with any help/queries that i have had. Thank you both!

Disgusting service. They have held on to my deposit it has been over a month since my tenancy finished. I have tried to contact them many times and just get left in the dark. Get told different things by different people. No one actually knows what they’re doing here. Appealing agents, rude and just take your money

Rented via the Birmingham branch after they acquired Centrick Lettings. Post acquisition, a third party company, instructed on behalf of John Shepherd/Centrick illegally closed all of my utility bill accounts (accounts in my own name) with my utility suppliers without providing me any notice. It wasn’t until I received notification directly from the supplier to advise I was to expect my final bill that i was made aware of the issue. When calling my property manager (Bethany Turner) to discuss the issue I was initially advised ‘oh yeah this is an error that has happened to other flats too’ and that I would need to resolve the issue with the suppliers myself. It wasn’t until I told them the suppliers were refusing to discuss the matter with me now the accounts were no longer under my name that they then agreed to assist. I work in the Property Management industry myself and fully appreciate that errors can occur from time to time, however this was simply the result of incompetence and complacency. The service received when trying to resolve this was also subpar at best, I even escalated the matter to somebody more ‘senior’ (Kai Rodney) within the company and didn’t receive acknowledgment of my email for 3 weeks. Again, appreciating how busy and overwhelming this industry can be it does not change the fact that I was unable to have access to my utility accounts for almost two months with little to no communication on the matter. It has since transpired that they did exactly the same for my council tax too, removing my name from the council tax for the property while I was there and only now after having left the property am i being issued with a bill for the period they decided to remove me from the account. To add insult to injury, my contact details were issued to a maintenance company (once I’d vacated the property at the end of my tenancy) in regard to gaining access in order to do works in the flat I no longer lived in, meaning by no great surprise the incompetent staff members had somehow managed to provide my details to the contractors knowing full well I was no longer the tenant in the property which is worrying when in this industry, and many others, Data Protection is a serious matter. I have seen that Chris Blick is listed in the responses on trust pilot as a point of contact for escalation of such complaints. Ironically, despite copying Chris into my email correspondence he never did take a minute to provide a response of any kind, but it did encourage Bethany to respond in a slightly more timely manner. I welcome Chris to provide an attempt to justify my aforementioned experience and his employee’s truly shocking and incompetent service.

Caitlin MacDonald has provided an excellent service, especially organising work to bring the flat up to standard between the change of tenants.
Caitlan always responds promptly to our emails and actions our requirements.

Jim and Hanna