Townends Estate Agents
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Awful with students. Please be careful, they're untrustworthy for student housing.
This was my first experience with estate agents. As a group of students looking for a property, I would have expected the process to be smooth and the estate agents to make it clear to us what was happening. This was not the case. First we arrived a viewing for the property where there was also another group waiting for us. The agent said this was a very popular property and that six beds were rare in this area. Everything she said was in a way that came across as pressuring and time sensitive. It was made clear that if we didn't come to the agents today, there was a high risk we would loose it. So we decided to go to the agent. I ended up being there alone because other members of the group had classes. I was in there for two and a half hours by myself. They kept asking me to get everyone to sign documents to send to the others and if they didn't we'd loose the house. Whilst sat on the sofa frantically trying to get the others to respond to the email, I was then told we had to pay £800 today to secure the house. We could only find half this amount in this time which they finally accepted. Frankly, I felt bullied to pay them as they kept threatening I would loose the house. After I had paid the money I was told I can leave! The next day the group decided that we did not want to go ahead with the house as they did not trust Townends. In fact, six beds are one of the most common houses left for students, with many still on the market. I rang to ask for the money back, that was apparently non-refundable and they bullied me, again, into keep the house. During this time, they bombarded guarantors with email after email. I then emailed in and said we did not want to continue with the house, giving them my bank details to refund the money after being advised there was no legal reason for them to keep it. I ended up getting my parents to ring them, who even tried to pull the same crap with my parents. Eventually they said they'll give me the money back and tried to blame me by saying that I was lucky to get the money back. Moral of this is do not trust Townends. They were bullies, which I am sure comes with the tight property market, but to make people feel like they have no other choice is unacceptable. Since then we have had other exchanges with different estate agents which have been pleasant and far less stressful. Just be careful.