Cardens Students

Absolute disgrace of an agency (student cardens). They will squeeze you of every last penny and overcharge for anything they do. They clearly don't earn a lot of money so their eyes light up at the first chance to make some extra money from their clients - very bad company ethos. First of all a £200 'admin fee' was charged per tenant before our tenancy - now illegal for agencies to do so. During my tenancy our kitchen regularly shorted out as soon as you use the 2/2 hobs available to use. This obviously turns the power off for all appliances in the kitchen but also the entire floor's electricity. Our boiler also gave out during Christmas season and left us with no hot water or heating at all when temperatures dropped to 0. This took them 2+ weeks to fix too and we weren't given any compensation (imagine not being able to have a hot shower in winter in your own house that you're paying £600 a month for!!!). Now we've come to the end of the agreement and trying to get our deposits back - its a nightmare. All together £1100 in 'damage and cleaning' was charged - still yet to get any sort of deposit back and its been a month since the tenancy end date now. They charge extortionate fees to clean and replace anything (over cost price) too - we all cleaned the house thoroughly before leaving but they somehow expect it to be better than the condition we arrived in (wasn't very nice tbh)... At this point I think they are charging because they can. A few marks left on the walls due to posters etc. ended up incurring charges at £100 per WALL!!! AVOID AT ALL COSTS - go for a private landlord as the agents are just trying to earn themselves as much money as possible. Very inconsiderate too - we are students and asked for some leeway with rent due to us all moving out over lockdown; the house was effectively empty - denied straight away.