Cherish Property Reviews 26

Tried to charge me for ‘cleaning’ at the end of tenancy which most landlords do. Unfortunately for them I had got professional cleaners in prior to leaving which the government deposit holding scheme decided was enough to release all of my deposit to me. They tried for several months to bully me into returning to deposit that the government deposit scheme had given back to me. Jacky actually rang me several times over the course of 6 months threatening me with court action, anyway it never arrived. This was after a long comical history of errors from the company getting my email, phone number and name wrong on the tenancy agreement. I own my own home now but after renting for over 10 years with 5 different landlords these are hands down the worst. Huge bullies and very incompetent

NOTE: The date of experience is for an ongoing issue.

Cherish are absolutely god-awful. When my partner and I were looking for somewhere to rent, we saw our current apartment listed by Cherish and went through their application process - holding fees to take property off the market, referencing, etc.

This was through Goodlord and through the Zero Deposit scheme. Seemed good enough at the time. Process was simple, we were kept up to date. That part of the process is probably the only thing they got right.

On the day of viewing, we were not told that Cherish were already present in the building. I had to take time off work to phone them and figure out what was going on, not being put through to the agent on-site and instead leaving messages, them getting passed on, and vice-versa. Felt like a game of ping-pong.

We eventually found out where they were, my partner viewed the property and accepted it. Frustrating experience, but it worked out OK.

Not worth the time and effort we put in, frankly.

On top of that, they'll schedule inspections with two days notice, and then message asking you "ensure you are available", if you're not in - by that, they mean be in all day until they turn up.

They might turn up early in the morning while you're asleep, meaning that you'll wake up to someone who you might think is an intruder.

Reporting issues is an experience akin to getting blood out of stone. Theoretically, easy - in practice, a burden.

I've been chasing a fault since late last year, which - to this day - remains unfixed.

They used to use FixFlo to report maintenance issues.

Their portal went down and I spent three days chasing them on where to report issues. I got an email response that came across very annoyed at me for having the audacity to ask where I report issues to.

So now maintenance issues get reported to their maintenance email address.

Their SLA with FixFlo was 28 days, were practicable. The issue I am chasing has been open for almost 9 months.

I have received no correspondence for almost two months. In fact, it'll be exactly two months effective 28/07/2023 about the issue.

I asked on how to get this raised as a complaint - I heard nothing back.

I've since raised this with the private rent section of my local council to at the very least - try and get the issue I've been chasing for 9 months resolved.

I'll be clear on one thing - the person I've been dealing with, Holly Seaton, has been typically responsive and understanding, so despite the fact I'm giving the business one star (which frankly they don't even deserve), I can't really fault Holly outside of her not setting automatic responses for out of hours, leaving me to chase for a number of days before she gets back and tells me she was off.

If you're a potential tenant looking to rent from Cherish, please, please, reconsider the impact that Cherish's incompetence may have on your mental well being, and frankly, if waiting almost a year to get one issue fixed is even worth the time and effort you'll need to be putting in.

As it's certainly having an impact on mine.

Cherish Property are at best woefully incompetent and at worst deliberately misleading and accusatory. Do not expect Cherish to fix any problem you may encounter when moving with a quick response - for example, the previous tenants had not paid their energy bill and I had received letters from their providers, it took Cherish a month to update the energy providers that I did not owe them anything. During this time I had to live under the threat of bailiffs turning up to my residence for something I had not done.

If there is any opportunity to shirk responsibility they will take it, and I have been accused of lying by one of their agents. When I first moved in, I had written proof that both I and the letting agents agreed to move in on the Monday. When I turned up to the property, not only was I left waiting outside for an hour but I could not get hold of the agent. Finally after getting through to their team I was told the agent was "adamant" that the moving date was Wednesday, and I was asked to send proof that Monday was the moving day. I was not able to move in Monday, no action was taken against the agent responsible and there was no sincere apology.

If you have any sort of issue Cherish will be completely useless. Whether it be a broken latch on a cupboard or a burst pipe they will do nothing but try to blame others, say "we will get back to you" or outright ignore your requests.

In no line of work should this level of incompetence and lack of professionalism be allowed.

Unprofessional,disorganised would be the first words that come to mind. I had a private landlord switch to cherish after a few years, over 3 1/2 years I never received any documentation with the correct details but plenty of obvious templates with partial info for other properties. Oddly enough on a few occasions instead of calling or emailing they hand delivered still incorrect documentation to the property. Sending contractors out without warning and then seeming put out that I wanted 24 hours notice (a legal responsibility) couldn't understand why I was annoyed and wouldn't just let a random man/ gas engineer in. After the property was sold they had the cheek to call me and chase rent, at no point were they helpful or useful.avoid at all costs.

Been complaining about repairs that need completing for days/ weeks and we hear nothing back. Would not go with this letting agency again, never experienced these issues before with previous letting agencies. There is mould/rotting skirting boards in our bathroom that is being ignored, the bathroom tap has snapped which is being ignored meaning we can’t use our bathroom sink, reported the bathroom extractor fan not working which has been ignored, we were also left without hot water for days a while back.

Absolutely appaling service. Not sure where to begin. One of the most incompetent companies I've ever interacted with. They are unresponsive; never respond to texts or emails and it takes numerous calls to get anyone on the phone. They are rude; they accused us of lying until we sent them an email chain with our agent proving that we were right and they were wrong. They are careless; the previous tenant of our flat had an unpaid energy bill which we receive mail about and they have failed to get the situation resolved. On top of this they consistently failed to send us the correct forms prior to moving in despite us reaching out again and again.

They've made the entire moving process miserable. Genuinely terrible company.

Appalling bunch of cowboys. One company Director Janice Bancroft cannot be contacted after multiple attempts. My son and his girlfriend sent numerous emails following two water leaks from the flat above (also let by same agent). Emails are largely unanswered. Call-backs and scheduled calls arranged by them never occur. A faulty hob that had a minor fault and was logged through their maintenance website has been ignored. This has now become dangerous.
DEFINITELY A COMPANY THAT NEEDS AVOIDING AT ALL COSTS, ALONG WITH CLOSE EXAMINATION BY COMPANIES HOUSE AND THE PROPERTY OMBUDSMAN.

Pleasant enough customer service over the phone.

However, the company are falsely advertising properties. Booked a viewing for a flat I was very excited about and completely my pre application for. Only to be shown a different property. Asked why they were showing a different apartment to the one in the photos on Rightmove and wasting people's time, and they ignored that part of the email. Seems as though previous reviews are correct.

Absolute scum. Deliberately don’t pick up the phone, and say they’ll call you back and don’t. They’ve left me and my boyfriend without hot water twice for 4+ days in the space of a couple of months. Don’t actually care about their job, their tenants, or following through on any kind of process. They lie to your face saying they’ve spoken to you/tried to call you. Avoid like the plague.

I recently viewed a property which was up to let by cherish properties. I had one of the estate agents called Abi who works in the letting department help me manage my application an process it for me. Once it was all processed she met me with my keys to my new home it was very straight forward. She is an absolute diamond so if your interested in renting a property from cherish tell them you want to speak to Abi. I wouldn’t of got mine without her. Don’t let any of the bad reviews put you off there just people who didn’t prob pass the checks so have nothing else better to do my property is perfect

Dan
Thanks for helping me Ab’z means alot

One star for being friendly and helpful when viewing but everything else was just a frustrating bad experience.

Supposed to move in 16th of Oct but the staff named guilian could not and not willing to take care of my referencing info even she had all the documents she needs for weeks.

We couldn't move in on the date and the agency started to dodge my calls, not replying to my email, eventually guilian asked if we can "make it easy" for her…which I believe just isn't the right attitude when helping your clients is your job.

I'm not originally from the UK, and as a graduated international student who decided to work here, my application was a bit challenging because I'm in the middle of switching to a new Visa from the previous student visa, and the Home Office required a call from the agency so they can confirm my legal status to remain in the country.

However, the way Guillian and the team handled my case says a lot about the individuals and the company as a whole. Won't recommend this agency to anyone.

Terrible company. Handed back the keys to my flat 3 months ago and have been emailing regularly to get my deposit refunded. Haven’t heard anything back from them. £750 of my money that they aren’t giving back to me.

This is a UK based property management company.

I viewed a property and was later informed I hadn’t been accepted, then two weeks later I received a phone call informing me that the current applicant had withdrawn and I was accepted, I sent over numerous identification and was constantly told that it was acceptable only to be asked for more time and time again, my guarantor was in place and on 3 occasions I was oven a move in date, on the morning of latest move in date I was called to send the first months rent, however I wasn’t given bank details to do this, when I called them back I was told my application was on hold as the lady I was dealing with needed to speak to her director, then I receive an email the next morning saying my application had been refused, this company constantly moving the goal posts and dropping the ball has now left me homeless, when I try to contact them for a reason why I have been accepted then rejected I was told she wouldn’t talk to me regarding the matter and I am now left in limbo, I was wondering why it took over two months from being accepted to being rejected and had that gut feeling it was going south, DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY, also noticed a very similar review on this site that is a carbon copy of my situation, highly unprofessional company, avoid cherish properties at all costs

theese guys are rogue landlords no adequate heating mold spores on the walls threatening emails and overcharging for a flat thats not worth the money there asking and they will never do repairs

We recently did a job for this company. We dealt with Sophie who was friendly and very professional from the start. All communication was good and everything ran smoothly. Wouldn’t hesitate to work with them again. Thanks for contacting us Sophie.

Where should I start! Myself & my wife viewed a property, which we loved and was perfect for us & our daughters. We contacted them on the Monday just after we viewed the property to register our interest. We had previously filled out an application on Friday because we just knew we would love it. I rang on the Tuesday morning to see what was happening with our application only to be told that someone else had beaten us too it and there application was being looked at. A couple of hours later I received a call saying the applicants had withdrew so we were next in line. She said she would send our application to the Landlady for her approval. The following day I received a call saying the Landlady was happy to proceed with our application. Consequently she sent out the link for our reference checks. We filled out the reference check forms online and sent our deposit to reserve the property. We also received our draft tenancy agreement.
We didn't hear anything back from them until Monday morning when I had to chase them up. I was told on the phone that everything was fine but we needed a guarantor. We had pre-warned them that this would probably be the case and had also mentioned it on the 1st application form that was approved by the Landlady. She told me that an online reference form would be sent out to my chosen guarantor and all being well we should have the keys by the end of the week after the property was cleaned. On Tuesday I called twice to make sure everything was fine when I was told that another application had been accepted and that the landlord was going with them because they offered more money. I was absolutely shocked as the day before I was told we could have the keys by the end of the week. They have refunded my so called "holding deposit". We are absolutely gutted as my daughters were so excited and we had already started packing and had given our current Landlord our notice. So I'm now left with a half packed house and 6 weeks to find a new one as my Landlord is selling this property.
Absolutely disgusting way to run a business this is people's lives they are messing with. Unfortunately what they have done is not illegal its just morally wrong. I don't know how many applications they have been going through as they were completing our reference checks. Also the fact that we have been given the tenancy agreement with the Landlady's name and address is surely against Data Protection Act if there saying that these forms mean nothing.
NOT A NICE COMPANY, WHO TREAT PEOPLE BADLY.
READ OTHER PEOPLES SIMILAR REVIEWS AND PLEASE AVOID

I originally wrote a 5 star review for the people (gillian and ashely) who helped me with my move in and move out. I still have high opinions of these individuals.

I'm actually very upset, the property i lived in had cockroaches :( I got rid of so many belongings and have had to pay best part of 2k to move and replace everything.

Although cherish are not responsible for this I don't think I should have had to pay the 2 weeks rent that I had to pay for leaving early.

I had no choice but to leave due to having ms and immunosupressed, I was advised to get out by my nurse. I feel these were not normal circumstances. If I was leaving early without the circumstances then I understand but I feel this is a little unfair.

Individuals have been great, its nothing personal to them.

so where do i start.... firstly my partner asked for an application to be emailed over to only have it sent to the wrong email adress and having to ask multiple times on the phone to have it emailed over again.... secondly they take a holding deposit and still take other peoples holding deposits on the same house.... without letting you know so if you think your securing a property you arent... they will take multiple applications and tell you that no one else can apply. this is false as i have found out today they submitted multiple applications and now its up to the landlord... no communication from your staff to say she was bidding against other people would love to hear what good excuse the company can come up with for this one.

Tenant Fees Act 2019
"Only one holding deposit may be held at any one time for the same letting unit so taking multiple holding deposits from multiple prospective tenants is not allowed. If a holding deposit has been repaid to a previous prospective tenant, a further one for the same housing can then be taken from a new prospective tenant." this is clearly breaking the law what this company is doing

Cowboys DO NOT USE!

Went to a view a flat with them, it was a state they never checked it was fit to view. Told me I could be in before Christmas the flat was still a mess on christmas eve.

Paid a holding deposit and Cherish never took the ad down, asked several times and they told me " I never paid a holding deposit" and that I never signed a contract when I paid was deposit, and then when I read the contract to them they would deny it said that.

The when I threatened to report them to the ombudsman my application was rejected.

Sophie Roland Jones is the letting manager and was just as criminal thought th manager would of righted it