My flatmates and I never have had such a bad experience with letting agents as with Ravenscourt Residential, in particular David Sharon. We rented a flat for over 5 years. We were friends with the landlord, which made it an eye-opening experience as we saw that during this time:

-LYING + WITHHOLDING MONEY - The landlord approved for our deposits to be returned within 1 week of move out. David disregarded this, and held one of our deposits + 20 days rent for nearly 2 months (and for another of us for 2 weeks) - and David then took the landlord off the email + lied, saying that our landlord hadn’t given him the ok to give back the money - when the landlord revealed this was a flat out lie - that she had months before communicated her approval to return the money. David said that the delay was due to a family emergency, but we chased David multiple times and it was only when we threatened legal action that we got a response (albeit, one full of lies).

-INCOMPETENT MANAGEMENT OF WORKERS - There were a number of building issues w the flat over time. David employed incompetent builders who did a faulty job on building repairs within the flat - and each time they did repairs they left behind a trail of damages, such as blobs of paint on the hard wood floors, white paint marks on the nice black front door, scratches on the hard wood floor, scratches down the walls in the hallway, a shoddy job hacking together the wc boards… the next door neighbour even alerted us that their manual hand pump machine they used to seal a wall for damp seemed entirely unprofessional compared to the company that had sealed their basement 30 years before with a high powered machine. One of the workers even left the toilet in a disgraceful manner. One worker trimmed branches and never returned to remove the large rotting pile for 5 weeks which meant we weren’t able to use the garden for the few nice wks of summer. When these issues with builders were reported, especially given the damages that they did to the flat (we were concerned as the owner is our friend), David tried to make light of it, saying that it was normal wear and tear.

-DISREGARDING HEALTH - MOULD - When David was alerted of mould in our flat he ignored for 7 months. When we chased him with the fact that this was impacting one of our healths with respiratory problems and being unable to take £15K of freelance work, he retorted that this wasn’t his problem, but a problem for the doctor. We began making a complaint to the Environmental XX but finally we thought the mould was being address (however it was in a store cupboard, not the actual living areas that were most important)

-DISREGARDING HEALTH - SEWAGE - There was a sewage back-up for the entire house in front of the house. We told David and nothing was done.. this was not handled for 5 weeks until neighbours were coming by complaining about the intense smell of sewage.

-PATRONISING MANNER - David’s manner was patronising. He made inappropriate and unwanted comments to me and my flatmates about the ‘deal we were getting’ as he considered the rent too low (of course he wanted a higher percentage).

-BREAKING CONTRACT TERMS - David broke the contract terms (and UK law) and showed up unannounced one time. He made comments about the time and our casual dress (that we should be better dressed given the hour he came by - which was none of his business, never mind the fact I was staying home ill and my flatmate had just come off an early shift).

This review was written to give warning to both renters + buyers!! Hopefully others won’t have to go through such an unpleasant experience!!