Westken Estates

My girlfriend and I rented a flat in West Kensington with another couple through Westken Estates. As soon as they had our money, our experience was terrible. They are reluctant to reply to emails and calls are vetted by a receptionist so you never speak to anyone useful. Promises to return your call are rarely kept. Their written English is terrible. They didn't carry out an inventory and were not present when we moved in, but at the end of the tenancy they claimed that the flat was left "filthy" and tried to charge us £150 for cleaning. Luckily we had cleaned the flat thoroughly and taken plenty of photos to prove it. This was in stark contrast to when we moved in - the flat was dirty and not cleaned but we eventually gave up trying to get them to sort it out and cleaned it ourselves. Speaking to other tenants in the same building, this opportunistic £150 charge is a part of their normal procedure, whether you clean the flat or not. We eventually gave up on trying to contact Westken and dealt with the landlord direct, who was in fact entirely reasonable (though completely eccentric!) The major problems came when we moved out. After giving a month's notice to Westken and the landlord we arranged a moving out date via email AND phone. Nobody from Westken arrived to collect the keys or carry out a check-out inspection, despite us being assured that someone would. We were told over the phone by their office to leave the keys in the flat, which we did. Big mistake! Several weeks after this we had an email from Eddie Garmen, the man who seems to be in charge of the whole operation, claiming that we hadn't yet moved out and would be charged for several weeks' extra rent! They claimed that we were keeping extra sets of keys, and threatened to charge us for replacing the locks in the entire building.The accusations continued, and got out of control, to the extent that Garmen threatened to charge us for replying to our emails when we attempted to defend ourselves. Thankfully, we took this to the deposit protection service, provided full evidence of when we moved out and the condition of the flat, and have now received our deposit in full. Please be extremely careful with this company. It's hard enough to find somewhere decent and affordable to live in London, so you often don't have much choice when it comes to agencies. If you're forced to go with Westken, play EVERYTHING by the book - only correspond by email and save copies of everything. Take detailed, dated photos when you move in and insist that someone is there at checkout. They will be unresponsive and negligent so you will have to go the extra mile to cover yourself. Make sure your deposit is protected and don't stand for any unreasonable or extra charges. We're now living in Yorkshire and have had a wonderful, professional, friendly service from the agency we dealt with. It has only served to remind us of how bad Westken are. Over the two years that we lived in the flat I did have some email replies from Eddie Garmen, the man in charge.