DONT USE - ridiculous deposit deductions - awful customer service I'm not one to leave a review, normally. I thought that it is needed to try and spare someone else the same experience. Up until now I have been lucky it seems with my landlords / estate agents. At first the experience with Ascend was positive, we managed to find an apartment we liked on the first viewing. The people I dealt with in branch were helpful. After I moved in the issues started to arise. There were various problems that we raised to our property manager (Robyn Y - I have seen multiple reviews with customers complaining about this property manager and its all for similar complaints. I don't think I have ever encountered worse customer service. Extremely unhelpful and rude). For example, there was mold present on window sills when we moved in. As with every issue, it took a number of emails to get a reply. When I emailed to see if anything could be done, the property manager eventually replied with an unbelievably unhelpful email. It seemed like they spent more time coming up with excuses as to why they wouldn't take action rather than booking in a handy man. I stated that it looked like mold on the window sills. I was told unless I could confirm that it is mold they wouldn't do anything. I confirmed that this was the case and still no help was offered. This was a common theme throughout the time I stayed at the property. Multiple emails and calls to chase up on any requests. It was difficult to even get through to speak to someone most times when i called. The real issues began after we checked out. We were sent an email detailing the deductions from our deposit. We were expecting very little to be deducted as we had kept the flat in good condition and caused no damage. We were quoted a refund of £86 from our £1125 deposit which was absolutely unbelievable. The items and associated prices were even more ridiculous. Nothing was cross referenced from the original check in report as property manager (James M) obviously couldn't be bothered. We were told that we were to pay for a broken freezer drawer - which was broken when we moved in, we have a picture of it on our check out report, in two pieces, requested to have this fixed but never was. The price quoted was £397... for one freezer drawer. I replied to the property manager (James M) saying this was already an issue so wont be our responsibility as it was already broken and also asked if maybe that was a typo. They got back to me, ignoring the fact that it was already broken and tried to tell me it was a "specialist item so its quite expensive". It was a beko brand fridge freezer, the drawers are on amazon for £15-£30. A new Beko fridge freezer of the same spec comes in at £279. I was then asked to "make an offer" for the landlord to consider - thats not how it works. When we moved in there was a glass coffee table in the living room which was not fit for use. It was so wobbly that I was surprised it could still stand. We flagged this on the check in report, even took a video showing how wobbly it was and received a reply saying that we could remove the table. Low and behold, what comes up as a deduction at the end of the tenancy, the coffee table. Another replacement cost was for a bedside table. Again a broken item which was basically hanging together. i photographed the damage and added to the check in report. The rest of the deductions were made up from redecoration costs and general repairs, for which I asked for specific details to see what contributed to those costs. Nothing was ever disclosed. There was not even any further wear and tear, other than what was already present in the flat. The most frustrating part of this whole situation has been the time that it has taken up. I had to go through all of our check in / out reports to flag to the property manager issues which were already there, only for them to be completely ignored and finally to just refer me to dispute my deposit with TDS. I have since disputed with TDS and am awaiting the outcome of that process. I am confident most of the deposit will be recovered due to the extensive evidence we have, luckily. I have seen lots of similar reviews to my experience. Most receive a reply from the owner or whoever replies to these reviews stating something like "our property managers wont make any financial gain deducting from deposits". I get this, however, given how our case has been handled and the multiple other reviews it seems like something is not right. I believe there is even a recent review from a landlord who complained that Ascend were claiming deductions for something that they, the landlord, did not request. There are plenty of reputable estate agents in Manchester, I suggest you avoid this business if you can. It really isn't worth the hassle.