Haslams Estate Agents Reviews 86

Max Goldberg has been extremely professional, highly skilled professional; we were impressed with his skills and his personality. He is extremely polite, helpful and with the genuine smile to help. He definitely goes above and beyond his job description to offer the best customer service and he makes the difference.

They are the worst state agency I have never encountered in my whole life. When things go awry, you find yourself just losing money. If I could, I would give them zero stars!! Do yourself a favour and avoid them as much as you can. Some of the issues we had:

- CHECK OUT: We did what we were told and also left the house in perfect condition, but still we received deposit deductions. The deductions were for a piece of plastic from the shower that fell off on its own. They claimed that their contractor said that it was broken on purpose, contractor who btw when he did the inspection, he didn’t even check the shower. We also hired the professional cleaners they recommended us (Cleaning Concepts Ltd), and who as we expected, did a terrible job. After we had moved out, Haslams behind our backs hired some cleaners to clean again the parts that weren’t done well in the first place, and our surprised was that THEY HAVE HIRED THE SAME CLEANERS WE HAD HIRED THE FIRST TIME!! Basically, they wanted us to pay for the same cleaners twice. I mean, what sort of scam are they running with this cleaning company?? And the best part is that they emailed us the deposit deductions after 24 working days. As per our contract, they had 20 days. When I told them that they were violating our tenancy agreement and they had to give us the whole deposit back, they told me that that clause of the agreement was just set out as guidance. When it’s on their favour, it’s mandatory, but when something is on the tenant’s favour, it’s just a guidance haha. At some point, after two months we had to raise a dispute through the TDS and 3 months since we moved out, we have received our whole deposit back.

- BOILER: Time to time, it just stopped working and if you were in the middle of the shower, the cold water wasn’t very welcomed. Lucky for us it was at the end of the tenancy, but still we had to live with this issue for two months straight. We reported it and Haslams sent their contractor (the property was managed by them). The guy said to my wife he had to come back to change a fan, but he never did. After a week and a couple of cold showers, we emailed Haslams again to see when the guy was coming back, and their answer was that the contractor said that the boiler was in good condition. After two weeks chasing them, they finally admitted that the boiler needed to be changed because fixing it was going to be more expensive and that they had to discuss it with the landlord and they would come back to us with his answer. Of course, we never heard back from them in that matter and we just simply accept that the boiler wasn’t going to be fixed because Haslams agents weren’t the ones having cold showers…

- PARKING: They had to close our parking due to a problem with the building’s cladding. Haslams told us to find a provisional parking and keep the receipts in order to claim a reimbursement. Fortunately for us, my wife talked to a colleague who had the exact same problem in his building and with Haslams as property managers. He told us that Haslams had said the same thing to him and he strongly recommended us to look for a long-term solution because this with the building was going to take a very long time to get fixed and Haslams wasn’t going to reimburse any money, so we followed his advice. Up to that moment, we had spent £270. When we claimed the money to Haslams, they said that the landlord wasn’t going to pay because it was a breach of contract. When we asked Haslams why they didn’t advise us to find a permanent solution from the beginning since they had previous experiences in the same matter, they said that each case is different when it is actually not. Some buildings in Reading have had this problem with the cladding and it takes a very long time to get it fixed, so they knew perfectly where we were walking into. If it wasn’t for my wife’s colleague, who knows how much more we would’ve spent in provisional parking due to the Haslams’s inefficiency.

We have used Haslams as Landlords for over 9 years and generally found them to provide a fair and professional service. I have dealt with Oliver Chambers, Emma Jack who have been really great.
More recently I have had dealings with Emma Aquino and she too has provides a great service. She has been timely and professional in her approach. Thank you to all at Haslams. Nilesh

Bullies!!! The start to finish was a shambles!

I lived at Hanover House, Kings Road, Reading, where I paid for a 1 bed flat with parking space. The building turned out to have ACM cladding (equivalent to Grenfell Tower) so the management company, Chaneys, shut the car park. Haslams (my agent was Joanne Thompson) tried to force me to continue paying full rent inclusive of my now-removed parking space, even though it breached my contract. I have experience with property as both a landlord and a tenant all around the country and have never experienced such unprofessional service and bullying. I was also in the process of purchasing a flat from Haslams so I also had leverage and it was only when my sales representative communicated this to the Lettings Director, Martin Hembra, that I received communication from him. They still did not acknowledge that my rent should be reduced in the light of no car parking space. Finally they gave up as I continued to withhold part of my rent but unfortunately many other residents were bullied into paying full rent in the event of their parking spaces being removed. This is a pure breach of contract and fortunately with my experience in the property market I knew this. Will not be using again for any purchases or rentals and do not advise you to use. Avoid!

Wouldn't recommend this agent to anyone. Lies after lies and total waste of time dealing with them. Avoid.....