Harrington Lettings – Student Reviews On Letting Agents

Not perfect but they sorted most things for us quickly and it was a good price for our house so overall its a pretty good company.

Got a house really easily with them, they email you houses on your uni email when they come up and you can go look and seal the deal really quick. Highly recommend.

I was in hiatt baker and the halls are very good overall. The one I was in was quite new with a good size room and a large shared kitchen. Any repairs were made very quickly and a cleaner came once a week so the communal area was normally quite clean. Definitely recommend all north village halls especially if you are doing sport at coombe dingle.

Good landlord, quick on repairs and responding to messages

really good landlord, few issues with not giving notice about coming in the house, but in general a good landlord

good landlord, good house, good price

in general a pretty good landlord, any issues weve had hes got sorted pretty quick

really good landlord, no complaints

Decent overall, clean rooms and kitchens, can get noisy being in the centre. Cleaners come weekly/every fortnight which is good. Reception is helpful most of the time

Bit of a walk to university but good quality of rooms. Close to shops and the station. Very good for first year students

Good views of the city from a high floor, close to everything with good nightlife. Can get noisy with the buses and general public, but with good quiet spaces for study and socialising

Can be very noisy thanks to main roads surrounding the accommodation, but is generally clean and well-maintained. Close to other accommodations in the centre, but getting to North Village can be hard.

great

Couldn’t ask for aymore

theywere excellent. They took care of the house very well

Good experience. Easy to get an answer to questions. Property could have been in better condition but could be worse.

Quick and responding to emails, friendly in the office. Yet, quality of the flat was not up to standard when we arrived

Initially seems like a good company to work with and they are quick at responding to email, however it needed further cleaning when we arrived and some bits of mould in some rooms.

To be honest I was warned about Harringtons from a friend who was forced to leave his flat due to there unwillingness to deal with mould problems he had so i partially blame myself for not listening to him that they are bad agents. They have the most unreasonable agency fees’s I have ever come across. Random numbers they pull out of the air with no explanation to why they cost so much. Clearly going int a post for the annual staff Christmas party. When I moved in they forced me and my girlfriend to pay hundreds of pounds of agency fees each! Even though they were letting us the property based on my salary entirely. Never happened to us before anywhere else we lived. Nor have I been asked to provide a guarantor since I was a student but both me and my partner had to provide one. I was unfortunately made redundant at work and forced to move back to London, primarily to find work, Though I been there 19 months and was well into my second contract, which should have been month to month rolling anyway, they demanded I pay hundreds of pounds of exit fees for them to stick a room add up and pay for everyday after I left the property until the new tenants moved in. As soon as they knew I was out they than went dark and I sent several emails before I got a response again. In which they advised me that they effectively snuck into the property before I had finished moving out and took pictures before I had cleaned. They not only had the flat cleaned after I did but basically had it renovated in the process and fixed a load of things that should have been fixed before I moved in like the lock for the front door! They are trying to charge us £400 for + £250 to call the cleaners it’s a joke! They have charged more in fees than my whole deposit! Just don’t use these people until the law changed and prevents sharks like this from existing. Go private or use someone else.

Worst experience with them. They left our house back door unlocked on two separate occasions after viewing when no-one was home and charged us £800 to clean the property once we left (even though we had left it in a better state than we found it in). Slow service, rude staff, incompetent (they blamed Mould in our house on us for 3 months until two large holes were discovered in the roof as what was causing the problem) would NEVER recommend especially not for students.

If I could rate zero stars I would. All will appear fine and dandy until you want your deposit back. They charged us £800 for cleaning even though we spent 2 days cleaning prior to moving out. It was spotless. They also tried charging £50 for taking my own sofa, £42 for lightbulbs and whole miriad of other petty charges. Harringtons how do you sleep at night? Avoid at all costs.

I am so disappointed with the service my received from Harrington’s. My guess is because they were students, Harrington’s agreed with everything the landlord said, issuing us with an huge invoice when leaving the property for totally unrealistic and unfair bills, eg. ‘wear & tear’ is expected when letting a house out. Beware! I have never had this experience with any other Letting Agents dealing with students and I would never recommend them.

Yes another £800 bill for cleaning £240 agency fee . Was threaten with court proceedings if we did not pay, they like to bully students who don’t know the system.Only would negotiate by email. I suggest avoid them but if no other option make sure your taking photo’s of everything when moving into one of H’s properties as they will charge you for any damages they can. For example underside of mattress needing cleaning, bet you don’t inspect that when you move in.Its normally a third party company doing cleaning inspection and they will rip you off. TIP before you move out meet and with landlord/agent and agree to what work needs to be done.

Seriously. Avoid at all costs. They charge you a ridiculous admin fee (which increases in price each time, huh) and then get the ‘admin’ disastrously wrong. My dog would be more efficient.

The worst letting agency in the entire Brighton/Hove area – AND THAT IS SAYING SOMETHING! Such an awful, unethical and incompetent letting agency. They will attempt to steal as much money from you as they can, whilst offering the same quality of service as if you let some monkeys loose in an office. PLEASE DON’T USE. Honestly I ignored this same advice and I have regretted it every second. Many are bad but Harringtons should be shut down by the government.

I’ll keep this short. Rented a property for 2 years from them. Had invasive checks from them every 12 weeks, had to pay expensive resigning fees, took over 7 months to fix the dishwasher, requested to leave 2 weeks early from our tenancy to save us £700 (gave them 3 months notice) – told absolutely not. Just not very nice people to deal with. Have clearly been trained to treat tenants like dogs. Moved out leaving the house in a better condition to when we moved in. Had it professionally cleaned to not give them any opportunity to take money from our deposit. Charged us £300 TO REPLACE SOME LIGHT BULBS. No, I’m not joking. £60 for the bulbs + £240 agency fee. Took 2 months of fighting through the DPS. Luckily they agreed this was unacceptable and ruled in our favour. But the hours and the tears wasted over this sorry excuse for an agency…I’ll never get those back.

Do not ever rent a property with Harringtons Lettings. Ever. An absolute joke of an organisation. I could write out every reason why you shouldn’t use them, but I don’t have a spare 42390481239048123498 hours to do so. They’re all smiley and helpful until they get your money and then BOOM.. couldn’t care less. They don’t sign off any of their official correspondence/emails with a name. Just “Harrington’s Admin”.. so you don’t know who you’re talking to. They’ll write to you days before your rent is due and tell you they haven’t had it yet – then CHARGE YOU for the cost of sending the letter out. They’ll also charge you a ridiculous amount of money to renew your tenancy. I know some other agencies do this, but Harrington’s charged three times what I’ve paid elsewhere. An absolute joke of a company. Rude every time you call them. DO. NOT. USE.

Where to start, they are laughably bad. firstly they raised our rent by £5 a week after we had already signed n paid the holding fee. when we moved in, the house was completely filthy (tampons in washine machine, wet mattresses, old tenants stuff, wee smelling rooms etc etc). they then tried to make us sign an inventory that was like 5 years old and completely inaccurate. they don’t communicate with each other and have called my mum (not even my guarantor!!! so illegal) when they thought i hadn’t paid rent despite the fact i had paid 4 months in advance (as was the agreement for my moving in!) . i told them this and they said it was my responsibility to look through my bank statements as evidence. i showed them this and it happened again (threatening to contact guarantors) despite the fact i emailed to tell them i had paid in bulk again. also they blamed us for years and years worth of damp and overgrowth in the garden and threatened to fine us if we didn’t cut down a very overgrown tree (not our fault) somehow assuming we had tools and forestry knowledge/experience. this isn’t even everything!

Besides from double booking our house from the start therefore making us having to relocate to A new house just before we moved in… They were unresponsive leaving one of our showers and dishwasher broken for the whole year the house was in bad shape before we moved in and tried to blame us for some graffiti that was there when we moved in and were so bad our landlord changed agency this year just so he wouldn’t be associated with them and he’s no saint either. Avoid at all costs unless you like having money disappear from your bank account. The only time they are resonsive is if one of you hasn’t paid rent this is followed shortly by an email with threats in it like you’ve just robbed a bank.

Rented a house from Harrington’s full of problems last year including mould, damp, fallen through ceiling, broken shower which we had to go without for weeks, faulty cooker . . . the list goes on. Harrington’s did not help with a single thing as everything had to go through landlady (Ms. N. Wilkins – diabolical landlady and would avoid renting one of her properties at all costs). We eventually had to get an environmental health inspector round from the council who helped us get some of the problems sorted as landlady and Harrington’s were refusing to help, and would rather have left us to live in unhealthy and unacceptable conditions. The unethical nature of Harrington’s is exemplified in a letter A. Mclennan (branch manager) sent us during house viewings in the Spring, threatening to ‘deduct marketing costs from our deposit’ if we discussed problems we had experienced in the house with prospective tenants. Based on our experience with the property, landlady and members of staff from Harrington’s, I would recommend avoiding Harrington’s at all costs.

Not the best letting agent to rent from pretty disappointed with the quality service would advise other students too look elsewhere.

Harrington’s treat students like morons which disrespectful considering how much we pay in fees. Ignored phone calls and emails are common when renting from Harrington’s. Useless completely useless.

Absolutely awful. It was a nice property but there were issues with it which were supposed to be resolved before we moved in (such as a faulty shower, damaged ceiling in the living room etc.) that either took 3+ months to fix or were never fixed at all. After 4 months were were given a notice that they would not be renewing our tenancy with no reason given and 2 months after moving out they have made a litany of false claims so that we cannot retrieve our initial deposit. Completely awful to deal with, liars and seemingly out to fleece those with little experience of renting (hence their targeting of students). I suggest paying a few quid extra with another agency to avoid the headaches caused by this one.

Terrible Agency. Not only were they late to the appointment, they were slow with forms and after signing for everything they pulled our application out a week before we were meant to move in, nearly leaving us homeless. Although extremely stressful at the time, I can only be thankful for this happening before we moved in as all I have heard is bad reviews from people who rent off them now. DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME.

We were told that we could move in to our house on 16th Sept, but then the day before, we were told we couldn’t move in until the 23rd. Builders were still hanging around and doing odd jobs for at least another month after we moved in! Downstairs shower didn’t work for 3 months despite numerous calls and complaints. We were promised heated towel rails and blinds in the bathrooms…didn’t happen! Pleaded for a side gate, and they didn’t install one until we had people walking into our back garden who tried to break in! They’re a nightmare to get hold of when you have a problem, but as soon as they think you’ve missed a rental payment (which we never have) they won’t stop calling! WORST EXPERIENCE WITH A STUDENT LETTINGS AGENT EVER!

We have plenty of issues with our house in fiveways. This letting agent will snap your money up in no time for literally little work involved. Their contribution to customer service is diabolical. How they are allowed to be an letting agents amazes me. The house they secured us was rubbish. And they will rob you blind for your deposit charging for pointless things.

Damp and electrical issues with the house not disclosed. Our two requests (double beds & fixing the falling apart kitchen doors) were not carried out, although they assured it wouldn’t be a problem to do so. And worst of all a new wall was built in the front room (we chose it as the living room was large and this made it a lot smaller) and they withheld this information from us… for us only to find out when we arrived on move in day AFTER we had signed the contracts and received the keys to which they shrugged their shoulders and denied any wrong doing!!!! Infuriating!!!! They knew about the plans for that wall all along! Devious money-grabbing liars! They still took our £600 ‘agency fee’ despite this with no resolve. Typing this from the house now… Still… They gave us a free pizza. Albeit a £600 pizza. Ha! Awful.

We were living with a wood lice infestation, broken freezer, broken boiler and mould, all while they were breaking their own tenancy agreement (and the law) requesting extraordinarily high fees, collecting all the money they could whilst putting no effort in for us. Money-grabbing crooks. Don’t waste your time and money

Never. Ever. EVER. Get involved with this company. After a very convincing and pleasant tour of the house before we moved in, we were left very disappointed when we eventually did move in. Woodlice infestations, mould, freezer malfunctions, broken boiler, door seals, faulty showers, unsafe paving and many other issues were recovered. After reporting all of these issues, Harringtons did nothing to help us, and most of the issues we have had to fix ourselves or just simply live with. After our guarantor contacted them about this, Harrington’s became defensive and rude and have decided that we are no longer able to renew our tenancy, and have also decided to increase the rent without telling us before hand. They also wanted us to pay admin fees again when we asked to renew the tenancy, which in itself were extortionate. They only did this because admin fees are being outlawed next year. Harringtons also refused to give us the contact details of the landlords and we only came in contact with them after we visited the house. Harringtons are money grabbers, who prey on university students, who may not know their rights or may not be as fortunate as us to have someone who is very familiar with court prosecutions and the law. Please do not let yourself, your friends or any one else that you know go through what we have for the sake of a house. It is not worth it and Harringtons deserve to go out of business. S

STAY AWAY.. I was young and naive and did not realise what I was getting myself into at the young age of 18 and starting uni.. Alarm bells went off when we were charged an additional £50 to see our lease documents after paying holding fees (which didnt come out of the deposit).. On my first day In the house I decided to move the wardrobe which was already in the bedroom and the whole wall behind it was black with mould and the wall was crumbling away(see pics attached). Not only is this unpleasant to live in, this is terribly bad for your health. I sent multiple emails all year and no action was taken. We went weeks at a time without being able to use the shower or the toilet as water would pour through the wall and we never received any compensation. I often had to walk to the pub in the middle of the night to use their facilities and after informing Harringtons, again no action was taken. After a long mouldy year in this awful house we spent all day cleaning the flat so we could get our deposit back and get on with our lines..BUT of course, Harringtons witheld our deposit. We never once didnt pay our rent despite these awful living conditions! They put an action in place where only the lead household members parents could claim the deposit back on behalf of the rest of the tenants, unfortunately my friends parent was unable to do so at this time and we were unable to claim our deposit back. THESE PEOPLE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUNG PEOPLE / STUDENTS TRYING TO MAKE THEIR WAY IN THE WORLD! STAY AWAY!

DONT WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THESE CROOKS! Harringtons has honestly shocked me. They way they treated me is absolutely unacceptable. They are very rude, and on a few occasions they tried to intimidate me about “unpaid” rent, which I did pay always on time! They also tried to charge me £240 to renew my tenancy agreement and made me pay upfront before sending the contract to me. Once I read the contract it CLEARLY stated that the renewal fee was just £80. Of course I made a complaint and got my money back, and they pretended like it was an ‘honest mistake’ when it clearly was not. They must have just hoped that I would trust them and not read the contract before signing it. I can’t imagine how many students they must have tricked who are financially struggling. Harringtons should be ashamed. These are not good people.

I never write reviews – but I felt compelled to so that I could express my disappointment, dissatisfaction and general dislike of this god awful estate agent. Harrington’s are, in my view, an embarrassment to the profession and an embodiment of the stereotypical estate agency that everyone hates. Poor communication between tenants, next to no help in dealing with issues we raised. However you bet their to take money from you and chase you went its not paid on time.

I never lost a penny out of my deposit so I definitely didn’t expect to give these disgusting people (I refer to Harringtons) a present of £100. We argued with them for a month about the price taken from the deposit. Harringtons thought that they can steal from us £700. Even though we left that old, God forbidden place, in a better condition that we got it!! They refused to do a deep cleaning of the house when we moved in, however didn’t forget to charge us by the end of the tenancy for that! We lived with the hole in the ceiling for an year (leakage) because they could not arrange a day to fix it! However they didn’t forget to add ridiculous amount of sum to be taken from my deposit!!! Luckily, me and my housemate read the contract and took photos before we moved in and after. This helped to put them back to their place, because they realised themselves that THEY ARE STEALING OUR MONEY. So we managed to reduce the deposit taken from £700 to £200 (!!!!!) Just think about it! They didn’t have any justifiable reason to take even those £200!! But we got fed up with them by these years. So take it as a present, and hopefully that is the last money you see in your life. ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE PEOPLE TO DEAL WITH, UNPROFESSIONAL, LIARS WITH ONLY ONE THOUGHT IN THEIR HEADS OF HOW TO STEAL YOUR MONEY. Forgot to say, couple of months ago they started bothering my guarantor for some cloudy sum that I haven’t paid. Guess what it appeared to be? A bug in their program! But they didn’t forget to be extremely rude to demand money I didn’t owe them!!! And never apologised for that in front of my guarantor!! Fun fact: in 2018 ( we’ve been renting that property for two years) I received an email asking to give them a good review online for £10. Now you know. All those who left a good review here haven’t met their real faces yet:) AVOID.

Harringtons Lettings in Brighton is perhaps the most unprofessional letting agents in the whole of the south. They don’t return your telephone calls, they takes days for their engineers to come out. We were left for 3 days without heating and on another occasion our toilet was not repaired for over a week, and it was only when it leaked into the downstairs flat that they sent someone. Expect one side contracts, unreasonable administration fees, rude staff who need training and to top it all off after you’ve moved in, they will return to put a new ‘To Let’ sign outside your flat so that they can advertise! Avoid Harrington’s Lettings like the plague and find a proper letting agent.

Do not trust these “Cowboys”. They will look for any chance to charge you. They will look for any fine detail to take your deposit. They are lovely as soon as you make the first initial contact, however as soon as you sign the tenancy they become unresponsive, uncompromising, and unwilling to make your stay a good one. I spent over 6 months waiting for the DPS Scheme to adjudicate a deposit dispute only to fall in my favour. I accepted that the carpet should be replaced, (Dropped an iron on carpet) suffice to say, the carpet was of substandard condition but they still managed to take £550 off of my deposit for that. However that was not my dispute, my issue was that not only did they try to falsify claims that damages were made to a door and tile grout, they continued to try and claim for fees respectful of getting quotes. All of which were not awarded in their favour. They even tried to falsely accuse me of leaving the oven needing cleaning with no photo evidence when I had professionally cleaned it. Please do not use these letting agents, you will not get your deposit back. They are run by illiterate children who will reply with illiterate responses during untimely hours, who are uncompromising and unclear. Everyone I have told about these agents have steered clear. Please avoid at all costs.

Most useless lettings agents ever. Please think twice before you use them. Ongoing problems were never sorted and they are incapable of sticking to their word. In addition, a simple questions such as when is my rent paid up until, was answered completely inappropriately. DO NOT USE> definitely not student no.1!!!

Would give the 0, but can’t. They took £800 off me after a year of no longer renting with them. Don’t trust these COWBOYS. Can’t swear on here otherwise I would. They also overcharged for money taken off after we left. I can not recommend enough for you not to get with them.

We looked at lot’s of Harringtons properties and some were pretty nasty.The landlord showed us round our house so Harrington’s didn’t do a lot for that. We only had to use Harringtons for the contracts as we’re meant to go straight to our landlord when we have problems with the house. They were ok. They made some things which should have been simple really complicated though. Like they’d send you two contracts and tell you to keep one for yourself and when you’d return theirs they’d then tell you they needed both. It was hassle sometimes, but the house was worth it and I think a lot of agents are annoying.

I am currently living at a property let by Harrington’s. There have been quite a few issues including mould growing on the walls, hot water not working (for a month) and unclean carpet in the bedrooms on the day of move-in. When we contacted Harrington’s about these issues we were told that they are not responsible and that we should contact the landlord instead. We did this and after having our text messages ignored for around a month, the landlord came round and resolved only some of the problems. Before we moved in, we were promised by Harrington’s that the conservatory would be newly furnished and have a new flooring placed by the time we moved in. Not surprisingly, the conservatory has not been furnished and the floor and furniture is still the same (old and dirty). After paying a substantial amount for Harrington’s agency fee, I would expect a better service as what they provide should be free (they provide nothing). I would never rent a room in a student house from Harrington’s again.

When I used Harrington’s to rent my property last year, there were quite a few problems with the house with a foul odour, mould and a broken lock on the front window. Not to mention a bad shower and very bad central heating system. They were quick to handle some problems, but not so quick for others. They charged us an average price for a home which was below average in condition. Finally, with the deposit towards the end, they had charged us £400 for ‘cleaning’for a house which had been cleaned before it was handed over. Not to mention they took the money for a new carpet out of the deposit. Overall, not very happy with the service of this agent.

I rented from these people and they were horrible . Please believe the comments you read on this site. They put the rent up with strong arm tactics with complete disregard for how long we had been tents or how little fuss we made and always paid on time. I have found consistently they have already had very poor reviews and every one of them I can imagine is true. If you see any positive review what so ever, I suggest it’s false

If I could rate zero stars I would. All will appear fine and dandy until you want your deposit back. They charged us £800 for cleaning even though we spent 2 days cleaning prior to moving out. It was spotless. They also tried charging £50 for taking my own sofa, £42 for lightbulbs and whole miriad of other petty charges. Harringtons how do you sleep at night? Avoid at all costs.