Martin & Co Southampton City Lettings & Estate Agents

Documentation till handover was perfectly processed and maintainace support on time and I hope same in future.thank youTeam Martin,

If I had the option of not giving them even a single star, I would have done that. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE AVOID this agency because all they tell you is LIE. From the beginning of my tenancy to the end. I had to move from Liverpool to Southampton last year, urgently because I changed my job, so I did not have the chance to do a house viewing (which is my fault). So I trusted the agent called Jack Toms. He told me that the landlord will be providing a fridge and washing machine initially, and so I agreed to sign the house contract with this company. Me and my fiancé moved to the house, and guess what, THERE WERE NO FRIDGE OR WASHING MACHINE. I called him and asked, he said ‘ Oh I’m sorry, it was a misunderstanding between me and the landlord ‘. I asked if I could speak to the landlord, THEY REFUSED TO GIVE ME HIS NUMBER. So I had to buy my own.Throughout my stay at that house, one after another went wrong as there were too many leakage + door damage. And during the storm, the fence broke. AFTER MY TENCANCY, THEY WANTED ME TO PAY FOR ALL THAT DAMAGE AS IF I DID IT !!! Now I have to pay £800 all together!!!IM BEGGING ALL OF YOU! Avoid this company!!! I have rented so many properties with different agencies in the UK, but I never had this experience with any of them before !! I MADE A HUGE MISTAKE! Don’t repeat what I did !!!PLEASE.

I have been with them for a while now (they took over the local Chandlers Ford agency of Jonathan Rees with whom I had a trouble free 10 year or more relationship renting two properties). I was not so happy with the cost increases after the take over. Megan Ward always very responsive and helpful on the rare occasion we have issues with our tenants.

Worst agency ever to rent from. I would give 0 star if there was an option. Spent over 2 months without a refrigerator, 3 months without a washing machine. When we moved out they claimed some £240 out of our deposit. My husband and I agreed for £200 as few of the things they specified were already on the original inventory. Then suddenly they decided to claim the whole deposit of over £1000 for no reason. Luckily I got the money back from TDS after I submitted all the relevant documents and proof that their claim of the whole deposit was outrageously greedy. As they had no reasoning or proof to claim all of the deposit the legal assessor gave the verdict in our favour. Also they asked us to pay a checkout fee of £120 when we moved out which we paid along with our final rent but kept including it in the final claim despite us telling them so many times that we have already paid it. This shows how they don’t actually maintain proper record of transactions etc. It’s funny how they responded to one of the reviews here that rent takes 3 days to clear but they charged us £45 of late fee for the final month rent as the standing order was cleared by my bank on the Monday following when our rent due date fell on a Saturday. I emailed them about it but of course they decided not to respond. They are totally unprofessional and I will highly recommend STAYING AWAY from them!Reply to your email: Thanks a lot for replying so promptly. I wish you guys were this prompt when I was your tenant and resolved all the reported issues on time which would have made things different. I am really impressed how you strive so much to collect facts" to defend yourself and correct me about DPS but don't even maintain records of deducting check out fee from tenants and charge on the final claim despite emailing back saying that the check out fee was already paid. It's really funny that you say we didn't respond. We struggled almost for over 6 months to get our deposit back despite replying promptly every time we got a letter. If all of your claims regarding us leaving the property in a bad state was true DPS wouldn't have returned the deposit back to us after you claimed the whole deposit. That says it all!"

Great company, super quick responses. Dealt with Jack Fisher who could not have been more professional from viewing to signing the tenancy. Goes above and beyond his job role to help us out with questions and queries. Would definitely recommend.

We are very pleased with Martin & Co on our experience with the sale of our house in Southampton.Andrea Armour has been outstanding with support and guidance to us throughout the process of the sale.We would highly recommend Martin & Co.Dr.S.Panthakalam

Very easy to book a viewing,Nice quick and efficient service, we didn't have much contact with the actual Southampton branch itself except when we picked up our keys but the few staff in there were very friendly and knew how to maintain a relaxed friendly environment.Shout out must go to Sam who was absolutely fantastic from start to finish, I must have sent her a billion emails with very silly questions but she took the patience to help us through this transition into our first home. very professional and friendly.10/10 would use again (hopefully won't have to anytime soon, no offence!!!)

After a challenging start in our first rented property last year, our experience with Martin & Co only got better after Barry was appointed as our managing agent.He has been nothing but helpful, professional and efficient, having to sort out out issue after issue with the property. After renting our second property through Martin & Co and moving in two weeks ago, Barry has made sure everything has gone smoothly with both our move out and our new move in. I've also never seen such a detailed inventory in all my life!

Lettings director turned up to do the viewing a tracksuit. We were chased for a holding fee despite avoidance of a simple question of how the property would be left as it was unclean when my husband viewed. I had to request a tenancy agreement to understand what their terms were as Andrea simply wouldn't given a straight answer. Once fee was paid we sent over the information for referencing, being due to move in in 3 weeks I asked 2 days later how long roughly the process takes. I was told basically they don't know how long it takes and I hadn't provided the information, I explained I'd emailed the information 2 days later and asked what happens with my reference check as my company was on Furlough (like a lot of England) I was told they don't know and to take it up with the reference company and she just didn't read the email properly ( this happened a lot) and asked again for the referencing info. I screenshot my email from 2 days previously and AGAIN explained I had sent it 2 days prior in the email trail we were communicating in. She then replied again stating it was me delaying the process as I hadn't sent the information.... So dodgy they got the money and then basically did nothing. Having finally uncovered the property was managed by them (I'd asked in an email days before but it was ignored) we made the decision not to go ahead and requested a refund and made a complaint about the service we received. In which they replied saying they think that's best, we are currently waiting for the money back.... Fingers crossed they actually refund it.Avoid at all costs. Tenancy agreements don't have much to cover the properties being fully cleaned on check out and the service is horrendous (and this was from the director!) So I can only imagine how bad it would have been if we went ahead and then had an issue at the property.Maybe the lettings director should remember a saying my old boss used to say when I worked at an estate agents “tenants can be future landlords”. So maybe treat them with some respect and actually provide some decent customer service, I wonder how the landlords would feel if they saw how off putting your service is and to a point it literally makes people pull out of renting properties they like because of it.

Since we are tenants, generally we are not fond of agencies. With Martin and co we had different experience. Megan Ward who is responsible for our property has been very prompt to reply and from the start she handled everything professionally i.e. from property viewing till maintenance. The house we stayed in was quite old and we had few repairs during course of last 2 and half years. But I can say confidently that all these repairs were carried out promptly without any hassle. They have amazing portal where you can post issue and case gets created and their nation wide maintenance team addresses the issue. So resolution is a lot faster. So I didn't have to pursue martin and co on phone or email for any repairs. After posting mostly I would get engineer in couple of working days. With boiler repair engineer came in 2 hour. So they are very fast to respond and acknowledging the problems with the property. So highly recommended !