This comment is in response to the response placed by Martin & Co (M&C) after my one-star review. The reason I didn’t provide a written review with the one-star before is because I was in a lengthily dispute with the landlord (LL) – lead by a member of the Martin & Co team. 12/03/20 Martin & Co, for the purpose of this review were not the property managers, it was LL managed – which seemed strange as they had such an input in this nightmare. Those of you who know me, know that my reviews are highly factual, & rarely involve any sort of ‘saltiness’ or ‘prejudice’. Initially my dealings with Gaye were pleasant, she’s a very lovely estate agent & is in general easy to deal with. She showed me a property, explained the dynamic of the property in conjunction with the LL’s property upstairs etc. It all seemed fairly simple. The problem with Bath is that it’s far too small, you’ll come to realise that there are rarely businesses operating in Bath who are at complete arm’s length with Bath residents. We were shown a property, Gaye even explained that the previous residents had loved living there & had a great relationship with the landlord. We were told that there was a zero-deposit scheme which would really help us given our financial situation. We decided that would be the best option. After a few months we began to find penetrating damp throughout the back rooms of the flat. Upon approaching both LL & M&C – both denied ever seeing/hearing of there being damp in the property. A month later the previous tenant approached us, & explained a number of things about their time in the property – including the damp they had suffered from in the back rooms (which they showed & explained to the LL). The tenant then showed me a number of documents which assert the fact of damp in the property. For example: the end of tenancy document signed by both tenant and M&C, had a statement about damp on it – specifically highlighting the issue with damp. So, you decide: did M&C know about the damp, knowingly rent us a property without informing us about it, or did they just completely miss the statement about damp on the ‘end of tenancy’ agreement that they clearly signed? Following a long-winded discussion with our LL – he explained that he would need to rip out all the walls, & replace them with a damp proof membrane. He explained that he cared about our health, & wanted us to move out as soon as possible, that we don’t need to worry about cleaning etc because he’ll have work being done once we leave. (Which appears is happening now we’ve left as it hasn’t been put on the market yet). This is where this gets a little “Iffy”. Upon visiting the office for M&C, I met their administrator Claire, very pleasant. I explained to Claire about the situation, that we were supported in our decision to move out and showed her the photos of the property condition (3 days prior to official end date). Claire seemed very sorry for our situation, expressed how bad it was that we had gone through it and showed some empathy for the costs we had now incurred to move to a new property. Claire at this stage saw the property, and did not say, whatsoever, that the property was not in an appropriate condition. Had she have said this – we could have cleaned the property ourselves & saved the nightmare situation. Claire even stated later in emails between her and the LL – that the property was in a “terrible state”, & yet she didn’t say a single thing about the state of it to my face. Long story short: M&C pursued us on behalf of the LL, through the adjudication process, and submitted claims for £1.5k in cleaning & decorating costs. This was a member of the M&C team who did this. £600 to clean a two-bedroom flat is rather extortionate. They treated us from the moment we highlighted the damp – as fools & from then onward acted in bad faith against us, on behalf of the LL (which is why I suspect they’re not at arm’s length) to try & chase us to basically paint over the damp that they had known about, so that they could get the property back on the market.