Haart

Reviewed by Steamerpoint on 5th March 2008

Services: Sales (Prospective customer)
Property: Residential
Experience: Would you use the agent again?  No

Haart are a joke. I had to type Prospective Customer because I am unable to select Employee. I worked as a manager for Haart for a few months before quitting as soon as my pay arrived in my bank account.

They rip customers off with their fees charging fees on a sliding scale. What they do is over value a property to win the business. Lets say they tell the owner the house is worth £210,000, but really it is worth £190,000. They then pull out a table and along the £210,000 line it says £4725 (Equivilent to 2.25% for example) they write this figure on the agreement and the owner agrees to pay this plus VAT on completion. Of course the house doesn't sell for £210,000. The vendor is pushed into dropping the selling price until they eventually sell for £190,000. The vendor is then asked to pay £4725, which is now equivilent to nearly 2.5% plus VAT. Had they put the owner on a fee of 2.25% the owner would have paid less commission and probably wouldn't have agreed to pay 2.5% on day one if he knew that this would be the eventual fee!

They treat staff very badly, moving them between offices 30 miles away with a few hours notice. Staff are unfamiliar with the area, branch and are completely ineffective. They are disorganised, heavily paperbased and spend more time completing stats sheets on how many viewings they have booked each day than concentrating of getting houses sold.

Staff worry about getting the wrong people around houses just to get their figures up. Moral was very low while I was there and people were leaving after only a few months of abuse. This left little local knowledge in any one office, yet staff were told to wing it and pretend they knew the area, often making big mistakes as they went.

They sponsor football teams in an effort to appeal to the local community, but it is more about advertising their name behind the goal nets for the TV cameras.

They are a nasty company and when they start putting their staff and customers first, before their huge profits, then maybe I could say a good word about them.

Their sharp practices were enough for me to quit estate agency when I left them and I returned to an office management job working with happy people where I was allowed to manage, rather than manage in name only. Avoid.

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Reviewed by Barbara on 7th February 2008

Services: Sales (Prospective customer)
Property: Residential
Experience: Would you use the agent again?  No

Hadleigh branch in Essex and especially some upstart manager called Steve Kelly....truly awful agent.....overly pushy and very un-professional attitude when valuing my home... I don't usually bother giving feedback but I felt I had to warn people off this agency.

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Reviewed by timothy on 21st December 2007

Services: Sales (as a Vendor)
Property: Residential
Experience: Would you use the agent again?  Yes

awful

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Reviewed by roseandchan on 4th November 2007

Services: Sales (as a Vendor)
Property: Residential
Experience: Would you use the agent again?  No

I used Haart's Thetford branch. Sold throught them but they never knew what was going on. In the end we delt with buyer on the phone. Their conveyancing goes to some big office up north, who also never know whats going on! Sale did go through but no thanks to this agent. Manageress has bad attitude!!

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Reviewed by Ahsan on 11th October 2007

Services: Sales (Prospective customer)
Property: Residential
Experience: Would you use the agent again?  No

Booked an appointment with Haart to view a property, went to their office at given time. The guy who was supposed to take me to the property was not there. After a long wait another guy told me that he will let him know that I visited... in other way, buzz off.

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Reviewed by AW on 23rd August 2007

Services: Sales (Prospective customer)
Property: Residential
Experience: Would you use the agent again?  Yes

Helpful face to face. Leave "sold" properties on their website (and hence rightmove) when they are long gone.

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Reviewed by jethro on 9th August 2007

Services: Sales (as a Buyer)
Property: Residential
Experience: Would you use the agent again?  Yes

The team pulled out all the stops when there was a problem with my purchase and sale. I was in a long chain and there were many complications including a person that had a sharia mortgage. The team at Haarts Arnold Nottingham were very efficient and informative.

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Reviewed by Jo on 24th March 2007

Services: Lettings (as a Tennant)
Property: Residential
Experience: Would you use the agent again?  No

Reviewed by Netti on 5th October 2006

Services: Lettings (as a Tennant)
Property: Residential
Experience: Would you use the agent again?  No

I have been very disappointed with FJ Lord (Haart company for London). I used them for renting a "fully-furnished" one-bed flat. I visited the flat while it was being "refurbished" or so I was told it would be. A month later when I moved into the flat (I signed the contract before checking the flat as I was moving back from abroad and had nowhere else to go to), the only thing that had been done had been painting of the whole apartment (it smelled very strongly for over a month), the carpets had not been changed (there were massive stains, from the boiler blowing up, I subsequently learnt) and there were no curtains. Windows were stained and water pipes and bathroom ventilator all very worn out and noisy. So much for the newly-refurbished flat I had put in an offer for... When I started asking for things to be done, I was asked to speak to various other people - they weren't sure which office or which department was supposed to be dealing with me... After speaking to about 10 people, I finally started withholding rent to get things repaired. Six months later, two weeks ago, everything was finally repaired. Last week, I got a notice that the landlord wanted to regain possession. I am glad I am leaving but will never use FJ Lord again. They misled me into putting an offer for a "newly-refurbished" flat, lied to me about the carpets being changed and were completely incompetent to get things repaired once I was in the property - the property managers had never even set foot in the flat and couldn't even tell me where the meters were! As an agency, they have various standard forms which are very much to the advantage of the landlords, so please beware before you sign anything with this agent.

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