If you are unfortunate enough to have rented a residential property through Bridgfords/Countrywide, make sure you read the Tenancy Act 2019 and know your rights, because they will try to rip you off at every opportunity. From experience, they charge vast amounts for an Fixed Term tenancy renewal, but don't carry it out, and refuse to communicate why. I've not been able to prove that I am authorised to live in my rented property for two years, because I can't get them to send me either the renewal contracts I paid for, or written communication to confirm it. I recommend starting a complaint with Bridgfords/Countywide Customer Service Department, which of course you won't win, and then escalate the complaint. Again, you won't win it, because it's inhouse, but these are the time consuming processes you have to follow. Then you can take your complaint to The Property Ombudsman, who are impartial. Then wait for weeks (because, not surprisingly, they are absolutely snowed under with complaints about letting agents) and keep your fingers crossed for a fair outcome. Then when you give a month's notice and leave, you have to fight to get your deposit back, despite having following procedures and agreed deductions with the landlord. Bridgfords/Countrywide will have the deposit released from the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, they will bank it in their account, and they will hold onto your money for as long as they can. The Tenancy Deposit Scheme Dispute Service are useful, but if Bridgfords/Countrywide don't tell you to cancel your dispute because they are releasing your deposit, don't! They still won't release your deposit. Hang onto that dispute for grim death, because you'll need them. It's now a month since we vacated the rented house and I still haven't got my deposit back. Bridgfords/Countrywide will tell you in their 'termination' information that you are required to carry out a professional carpet clean, professional house clean, professional window clean, and dry clean any curtains originally in the property. The Tenancy Act 2019 states that you don't have to do anything other than a domestic clean of anything within the house. Don't get sucked into paying huge amounts of money to finance the landlord's smooth handover to the next tenant. Take photos of everything before you leave, and use this to dispute deposit deductions, where Bridgfords/Countrywide will again try to deduct huge amounts because you didn't pay for professional cleaning services. They are narrow-minded rip off merchants. The amount of time I have spent over the past two years chasing up renewal contracts, dealing with Bridgfords/Countrywide's breach of GDPR regulations (when they sent me another family's tenancy contract which contained confidential information about both adults, children and financial details), which they refused to address or report, and now the time spent trying to receive my deposit, has been literally hundreds of hours. I'm completely worn out by their abusive, ineffective, contradictory, and all-round shocking service. Something needs to be done to prevent letting agents from treating good, paying tenants in such an appalling manner. Private renting obviously isn't as secure as other forms of renting, but to be treated like second class citizens, and constantly live in fear of being forced out of your home because you haven't got a tenancy agreement, is absolutely abhorrent behaviour.