Haslams Estate Agents Anmeldelser 

Our time renting with Haslams was initially good, they were responsive to any issues we had and good at communicating generally which included alerting us to any upcoming inspections or maintenance work. Unfortunately once we ended our tenancy things went downhill. The check-out report done for Haslams showed that we left the flat in an excellent condition but the agent and the landlord wanted most of our deposit. We attempted to work out why, making references to the check-out report but we never got a straight answer and our evidence was ignored. We were shocked and the blame game made us feel rubbish, like we had left the property a mess when we hadn’t. We whittled it down to them demanding half of our deposit, but we still weren’t happy and were luckily saved by the Tenancy Deposit Association and their arbitration scheme. This is when the gloves came off and we could see the underhand tactics used by the agent. They took photos of pre-existing defects to the property, used them against us (which we pointed out pre-dated our tenancy in our argument to the TDA) and made up issues such as ‘hairs and crumbs in places’ but never had any evidence to back this up. After we combed through the check-in and check-out report and made our case, we thankfully came out on top, and the agent/landlord got a small fraction of what they had initially wanted. We got the majority of our deposit back as we had initially expected. I understand that the agents are paid by the landlords and that maintains the business, but this felt extremely malicious. If you’ll be renting through Haslams, take pictures of everything and report it immediately! Make copies of anything you report and be prepared to have your back up against the wall when getting your deposit back.

Hello,

I am writing this review to tell other people what they need to know about this agency!

Saturday (04.06.2022) my partner had an appointment with one of the employee to see a house that we wanted to rent.
All good until the moment they, (my partner and one of the agents) arrived in front of the house and suddenly the agent said he didn’t have the keys to enter in the front yard. They stayed there, for a couple of minutes, he call somebody else (from agency) and that person on the call said don’t have the keys and that was all. He left because he said he had another client and he can't stay anymore. :|

How can anyone have such an attitude? How is it possible to make an appointment without having all the measurements took?? We lost a very important time, we lost money on gas for NOTHING because (surprise) the house was agreed after this incident to another person.

Normally, that person had to stay there until he solve our problem but she said that she doesn’t have too much time to stay because he have other houses to rent!!!

Don't collaborate with them!

(I wrote a review on Google and their answer was to call them because they didn't find me in their database :)), although I've send them an email and describe what happened again)

I am a new immigrant from Hong Kong. For a newcomer , we knew nothing about the UK, a good letting agent is very important and I am lucky to find one .

I had a very unpleasant experience on my rental flat in Reading, the property is rented through Haslams but managed by the landlord , many problems found from day 1 when we move in and the landlord refuse to discuss and try all the ways to delay the repair and even block Haslam’s involvement when we raise a complaint to Haslam , the Landlord excuse is” this is managed by him , not Haslams” . More serious cases were found and eventually with the help of the Letting Manager of Haslams Reading branch , we succeeded in terminating the contract and getting back the refund . We got valuable experience for this case: For a newcomer , who knows nothing about the UK , it is better to choose a rental flat/house MANAGED by a reputable agency rather than a single person/landlord as any open issue can be treated openly .

I have do doubt to recommend Mr Oliver Chambers , the Letting Manager of Haslams Reading to the others as he is a responsible , kind and trustable person who helps their customers in all ways although we have zero commission to Haslams.

Very much above themselves. This company need to train and nurture their talent then, they may perform an estate agent role. The directors need to conduct a major overhaul of this tired - but nice offices- business.

I signed with Haslam's Reading a year ago and it was the worst, exhausting, expensive and unhealthy I have ever experienced. The flat I rented is filled with issues and this agency has not done anything to fix them but ignore me and when they respond is to argue with me that I am not right and they refuse to fix the issues. They did everything they could and super fast to sign me and as soon as I moved in and the flat started showing all the health hazard issues they ignore me or argue with me. Not only I can not rest-sleep-work here but I have to waste my time arguing with them. My only option is to move out giving a 3 month notice contract they enforce me to sign.

Very Bad experience - Will not recommend. If you go via this agent, please ensure your promises written in paper and do not proceed on negotiation - they are good in delaying requests and vanishing at the end.

1. False promises made that they will talk to developer for price negotiation.
2. Restricted me talking to developers directly.
3. When the issue was reported, they vanished and left me to deal directly with developers.
4. Because of them 5k additional I had to spend.
5. Developer confirmed they did not receive any request of this negotiation I have been having with Haslams.
6. They invited me to select tiles where I confirmed I have to travel 80miles, when I arrived - the person showed me options but they were not sure about stock.
7. They promised burgler alarm is fitted - but developer denied it.
8. They confirmed atique is ready to use with boards but it was't when we moved in.
9. Fillings across house they promised but I am still chasing with developer on the same.
10. Failed to negotiate and get good price

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.....