Not happy about their practises.

Unfortunately, we had a very bad experience dealing with Martin & Co (Kingston), when they let our property to a “Tenant from Hell”! Martin & Co recommended a tenant to us despite the very bad reference checks/reports they had received about them (we still have a copy of this report and can presented it if required). Martin &Co (Kingston) did not reveal the contents of that report to us, only until a few months after the tenancy started, which was too late to act. We did question the reason on how & why such a tenant would be allowed to occupy the property, the answer from Martin & Co (Kingston) was completely unconvincing and unreasonable. Three and a half month later, the tenant stopped paying any rent, after which we had to go through a lengthy, gruelling and a stressful nightmare of initiating and following up on a legal case in order to evict that tenant. Nine months later, the court eventually ordered the eviction, which had incurred huge costs. Martin & Co (Kingston) also acted as a managing agent during that tenancy term, but unfortunately their services were attributed by the following: - First, the prices that they charged us for the jobs that were required on the house were very expensive compared with market rates (we kept all the receipts that had they charged us). - Second, their contractors, or at least the quality of the executed jobs, are of low quality (three jobs had to be reworked after the eviction). - Third, their follow ups with the tenant was very weak, they didn’t seem or prove that they are a caring agency, they always claimed that for them, there is very little they can do with that tenant! - Fourth, they failed to find out that the tenant had sub-let our property to other people, which was something against the tenancy terms and conditions. This proves that, apart from once in the beginning of the tenancy term, they never succeeded to successfully inspect the property again and to check who lives in it. As a result of the above, our loss during the that bad tenancy term mounted to nearly £30,000 including loss of rent, legal fees, repairing the damages that were inflected on the property by the tenant after they were evicted. I would therefore advise potential landlords to take all necessary measures to protect themselves against, potentially, similar scenarios when dealing with Martin&Co (Kingston).

Terrible. My husband and I were waiting outside the property we were supposed to view with Arturs and no one showed up. When I phoned Arturs, who was supposed to meet us, he said he had been 'too busy' but had meant to call and that he would be there in 2 minutes. Another 15 minutes passed and there was still no sign of Arturs. Eventually we got the message and left. When I phoned to request my details be removed from the system Arturs repeatedly talked over me, trying to explain he'd called twice (25-30 mins after we were supposed to meet) so not only was he useless, poorly organised and wasted our time, he was also rude.