ACJ Sales & Lettings

My main concern was that on end of tenancy ACJ requested I pay £150 for cleaning of soap residue on the outside of the washing machine and dust behind the radiators. Luckily after one email they reduced the amount to £50 (which I still think was unreasonable but decided to give in as to speed up the return of my deposit). I probably wouldn’t have left this review if ACJ hadn’t then contacted me after the new tenants had moved into the property and stated that the bed had broken, that it looked like someone had ‘sawn through the bed’. Luckily the bond had already been processed by this point. Thought I’d mention this so that future tenants can better protect themselves, take photos of everything when you move in!

ACJ are quite literally the absolute epitome of your worst letting agency nightmares. First and foremost, they are there for the landlord. Anyone looking to rent from ACJ should be careful to ensure that they are covering every basis before they set up living in one of their homes. They are keen to get you in, and the transition to your new home will be flawless but that's where the service ends.

ACJ quickly absolve themselves of anything that could possibly go wrong at your home, be prepared to battle them to listen to your maintenance requests. If you should challenge them on this, also be prepared for their final answer which is, "It's not our fault, the landlord isn't responding".

On taking over the property as a single tenant I was advised by a very enthusiastic Jason that on keeping the property I shouldn't bother locking in my monthly price as it is highly unlikely to change, being the trusting fool I am - I agreed. As you can imagine by now, ACJ went on to advise me very soon after then that my monthly rent would be increasing.

What was probably the part that stung the most, is that on asking for their evidence to support this - it was Jason who provided the background research and paper to increase the monthly price. Thanks Jason, you crafty devil - I hope there was commission win that for you, otherwise like, jeez man.

Just so you're aware the report had no factual basis other than Jason including every apartment in the area that was priced higher than my own, but disregarding those that were beneath it.

You work that one out.

Pray you don't need anything repaired. Christ. Not only will you have to wait, but they'll do half a job and leave you with the aftermath of their bad repair work to deal with.

The landlord is a spectacle for this too, arriving to the property without notice on a bank holiday to do repairs with a plumber who couldn't speak English was probably my favourite. Just imagine this, the landlord brought the plumber himself but somehow, neither of them knew each other's known languages. The guy was just shouted and berated until he was in the right place - I do hope that your'e okay Frenchie! And Raj, please stop hurting dear Frenchie's feelings.

Not to be exhaustive, but I am quite sick of complaining about this god awful service. Finally, we have Nathan. This guy takes the pickle. So, Nathan is a property manager of some sort (although I feel that title highly overinflated his sense of ego). Nathan does reports on tenants houses after they leave, he also writes his emails like he's The Terminator and Judge Dredd's lovechild. I have to say, I did expect to be billed for some sort of cleaning - you always do, right? But, Nathan believes himself to be judge and adjudicator believing that the existence of dust or wear and tear to be the damnings of someone who didn't lift a finger to clean before leaving. I'll let you guys be the judges of that, pictures attached - apart from the parts we've discussed about damages by repairmen - I think it looks pretty nifty. Sorry it didn't meet your standards Nathan.

Be warned, ACJ are just another vampiric-parasite of the landlords and they aren't there for the tenant in the slightest, get what you can from them and get out. you deserve better, whoever you are.

(Just as a note to their responses, these details were not all agreed in September and after being asked to take down my previous review by the company I did agree when my queries had been answered - but as I stated back then, "although some of this information was clarified, there are still accurate reflections of my experience in there" e.g - 1. ACJ have repeatedly thrown their hands up and pointed blame at the landlord for consistently refusing to make repairs to the apartment (making them worse over time), this includes the boiler and it just doesn’t tell me that you are at all interested in your tenants. 2. The COVID-19 regulations are there for a reason, and whoever was mishandling those details via SMS is potentially putting public health at risk.

ACJ have repeatedly thrown their hands up and pointed blame at the landlord for consistently refusing to make repairs to the apartment (making them worse over time), this includes the boiler.

As an agency, their sole-driver is getting paid by the landlords. Jason (their customer service rep) actively convinced me to not lock in my rent prices, but then a month later notified me that the rent is going up. Quite conveniently, straight after a plumbing issue had been sorted regarding a leak - after 6 weeks.

The customer service is rude and condescending, and the attitude received on reporting anything wrong is quite overly-aggressive. I haven’t felt supported or that my deposit is safe since beginning my tenancy, and you can guarantee they are going to try and take more after I’ve left.

They don’t have the tenant in mind, they will literally charge you labour fees to move a spoon from one room to another if you accidentally left it there.

Absolutely shocking service.

For anyone interested in COVID-19 regulations too, the letting agency have loose rules about ‘usually’ using wipes to turn on lights etc. And no real understanding of what needs to be in place for their tenants to be safe. On notification of this they just said that they’ll be happy to just turn up anyway, completely disregarding any need for safety at the tenants home. (I work for the NHS)

Jason and Alison are both excellent agents. They are kind and friendly, efficient, quick and detailed, and very polite to me as a tenant. I really don't understand where the negative reviews come from. Just want to say to some people who have been discouraged from contacting ACJ because of negative reviews, don't worry too much or believe that these may just be unpleasant experiences for some customers, and we don't know who is right or wrong, I will tell you from my personal experience, Jason and Alison, their service is professional, and they all do a good job, no problem at all, my husband and I have a very pleasant service experience. Thank you again for their assistance here.

I can’t comment on the estate agents but they find tenants for a private landlord called Mike Holmes so I would avoid him and ACJ at all costs. We rented off Mike when I was pregnant and he left black mould in the bedroom throughout the whole of my pregnancy, we were asking for over a year for him to sort it and he only painted over it after living with the mould from December 19 - January 22. Similarly, the fence in our back garden was broken for our majority tenancy and was magically fixed when we handed in notice. During our deposit dispute he submitted a cleaning bill and photo evidence from 3 years before we moved into the property which shows how much of a cowboy landlord he is.

ACJ Have honestly been a pleasure to work with. Particularly Natasha and Victoria who’ve been supportive and addressed all my concerns throughout. I’ve recently moved into a new property and they helped ease the process for a smooth transition. Reason for 4 stars was it wasn’t as clean compared to when I viewed the property however, really grateful for all the help ACJ provided.

Based on my interactions with ACJ, I would recommend you avoid. They seem to happily adopt some strange policies on advanced rent payment for tenants, placing you at genuine risk if there are problems with your tenancy. There is always another option, so best go with someone else.

ACJ is a very good agent. The staff was proffessional and communication was very quick and detailed. I highly recommend that people sell with ACJ. I tried to sell with two other big estate agents and they couldn't. The fees are reasonable. I specially thank Sue, Sian, and Jodie who sold my property.