A straightforward and hassle-free move. Harriet Wood was helpful, professional and friendly.

We have been renting from Sawyer and Co for 18 months, and Emma was our property manager for that time. She was always prompt in her replies, well informed about the property, extremely helpful and friendly, and it has been a pleasure to have her as our property manager while we have been here.

Harriet was incredibly helpful and Sawyer & Co are by far the easiest agency to deal with in Brighton from my experience.

Despite not representing me, the estate agent maintained good, prompt communication throughout the purchase. Due to a problem with the lease and some maintenance issues with the property, this was not a particularly easy transaction, but it may not have completed, had it not been for the work of Kerry-Anne and Luke to help me get these issues resolved. It took them a long time to get a missing window replaced and I had to ask a few times, hence a point deducted. But this was the only negative point to an otherwise professional service. Sawyer & Co care about how they present themselves to buyers, as we will, of course, one day become sellers. As a first time buyer, I found two other national high street estate agents very pushy and persistent with their in-house mortgage brokers. These tactics may bring in short-term revenue, but buyers tend to never use the agent as a seller. In contrast, Sawyer & Co are not pushy and have clearly thought through their long term business plan. Local estate agents are a better way to go, as they rely on their reputation. I would be happy to sell through them in future.

Sawyer and co were very friendly and professional. However, they were not the most responsive during the lead up to my moving in. They were very slow to respond to voicemails or emails (and sometimes didn’t respond at all) and I had to keep chasing. They also provided a lease with incorrect information so I had to review and sign twice, as did my guarantor. This was all rather frustrating when you’re in the process of moving in. I think this is one of the areas that needs focus.

My experience of everyone was relatively pleasant, people were friendly and helped myself and my partner to get the flat we wanted - our first flat. There was however a period of almost three weeks where basically nothing happened with our referencing, causing undue delay to the process of getting the flat. It is my belief that the agents I dealt with are not to blame directly, but I did feel slightly unsupported when dealing with the absolutely terrible referncing system Goodlord.

3 stars given mainly due to interaction during the finalising of the property. Unfortunately, I did not find the communication smooth with regards to the holding fee being paid as none of the Goodlord links actually worked in the email I received and we were being pressured to pay the holding that day otherwise our second viewing would be cancelled. I did not receive an apology for the links not working - instead, I had to try and pay on my phone which wasn't ideal and was a solution I came to myself. We also did not receive essential key codes for the building to access it on move in day. The three keys we were given did not work. We also noticed lights to the property were left on for a full week before we moved in (we live down the road) and have had to carry out many calls with Bulb to sort out the debt which had been accrued whilst we were not in the property. The viewings were polite and friendly and we did receive good communication from certain colleagues but others not so much and did feel pressured.