Absolutely useless! Newly moved into the Colchester area for work and spent a day looking at prospective flats to rent prior to moving. Found the flat on offer by Boydens and enquired about the parking arrangements at the property. The representative who showed me the flat said he wasn't sure but would check when he got back to the office. When I finished viewing other properties I decided that the Boydens property was on balance the best one, but only if it had parking available. Went to the office and asked if the property had parking and they confirmed that it did have parking. They were very happy to take my money and process my application. Took them less that 2 weeks to check my references and commence my tenancy. They then said that the landlord wanted the tenancy starting no later than a date that was more than 2 weeks before my job in Colchester would be starting. This was fine as I had the money to do it, although it was unnecessarily early for me. Enquired about the parking again and they said this would be confirmed when I moved into the property. Come moving in I ask about the parking yet again and was told that they will check it, I enquire if the parking space numbers might refer to the flat numbers. They agree and so I leave a note on the car parked in the same space number as my flat number informing them that I think they are in my space, which turns out to be a mistake as the lady who owns that car came round and I had to apologise for the mistake. Eventually get fed up with them not answering my query straight and asked the management company for the block of flats directly who supplied me with a copy of the land registry confirming that I have no entitlement to park at the property at all! Additionally they had previous correspondence with Boydens confirming that the property does not have parking. I immediately inform Boydens that this information would have been a deal breaker as far as me signing the tenancy agreement was concerned, they then suggest that I ignore the parking restrictions or park on the narrow road outside. I then request to the landlord and the agent that I be allowed to surrender the tenancy as the property had been misrepresented to me. So less than a week after I move in, Boydens agree to allow me to vacate the tenancy and re-advertise it, I give a move out date and state that my intention is to move into a new property with a parking space before the move out date I'd specified, which was in total 7 weeks from when I'd found out that the parking situation was inappropriate for my needs. They also agreed to refund part of the administration fee I'd paid initially as a goodwill gesture. A week later and I had found an alternative property, which was also with Boydens and so I made an application to rent this property. This application was made 6 weeks before the move out date for my original property. Instead of reusing the credit check that had already been carried out on me, they carried out a new credit check. This involved retrieving a reference from the landlord at the property without parking, who was not in the country and not answering phone calls, after phoning them repeatedly to check the progress as it was taking rather longer than the initial application I'd made for the first property and my employer had rapidly supplied a reference I was given assurances that everything was fine. They also seem to have delayed starting the credit check, as my employer got a request for a reference in 3 days for the initial check but 8 days for this second check. Consequently, due to these inexplicable delays, it has taken them over 5 weeks (over twice as long as my initial application took) to prepare the tenancy for the property I was planning to move into! And I still don't have a move in date for it! Since the tenancy that I agreed to vacate has now expired and I am not originally from the Colchester area, I am now effectively homeless as a result of Boydens complete and utter incompetence! Had they simply told me at the outset that the flat I was looking at had nowhere to park I wouldn't be in this situation because I would have opted for one of the other flats I was viewing, all of which had parking at them! If they'd pulled their finger out and got my references checked (or even just reuse my original credit check taken less than a month before) and new tenancy agreement prepared I could have lived with that as well, but instead they've just let my tenancy expire without telling me when my new one can start! On top of this for my initial property I was not given an inventory, no initial meter readings, no way of accessing the meters, not told where the meters were, not told accurately who was supplying the utilities. Avoid at all costs!