Martin & Co Norwich Reviews 

A lovely representative to deal with, really nice and accommodating. However, as a branch? Awful. Fifteen years of tenancy, any problem concerning the house was a result of cheapest possible option repairs that nine times out of ten resulted in more probems that needed to be sorted again. The lock on the front door broke, banham lock, a very good one, with a lock at the bottom that seized after a while and was only fixed after a fair amount of time getting the right key cut and however many pints of wd40 to get the thing to work again. Rather than replace the lock like for like? They shoved a TLC lock worth about twenty quid above the broken banham lock that you could literally negotiate by pushing a debit card through the gap in the door, the banham lock just remained there with two screws shoved in it to stop the latch. Opening the door when shut meant you could pull the door open and it would come open at the bottom due the height of the lock, heating bills were very expensive as a result.

Cracks in the walls were never addressed, painting only happened once to about a quarter of the house, the carpets were never replaced and looked *awful* come end of tenancy, damp at the front... I could go on.

And come end of tenancy after fifteen years? They tried to charge me for cleaning the carpets, re-doing the worktop (got blackened near the oven because the worktop was far too close a fit to the oven That was 'fixed' by shoving two dirty planks of wood underneath the oven to raise it about an inch and just left it), and repainting the house. One look on right move shows new carpets and filled in walls and a new paint job I should have had during the tenancy, and no work done to the worktops. Astonishing. I walked away with about 50% of the deposit after adjudication.

A nice representative to deal with, but as a branch? Prepare to be infuriated, or avoid.

AVOID THESE LETTING AGENTS
Martin and Co have been our letting agents since late 2022. Unfortunately we have nothing good to say about them. They have been difficult from the start to the end. We moved in and were told that the property had been professionally cleaned and it may well have been at some point within the last 10 years but was definitely not done so recently, my partner and I had to clean the house top to bottom, the kitchen cupboards were filthy and the property was full of dust. Less than a month after we moved in, I received a call asking when a convenient time would be to put scaffolding up for the roof repairs. This was a complete surprise as Martin and Co failed to mention anything about work being done to the roof. As you could imagine we were off to a poor start. As expected with rented, appointments were booked in for works without consultation with us and we just had to make it work. The communication has been poor and it feels like they only seem bothered when they want something. They also like to conveniently reply at 5pm on a Friday, wonder why that could be… We tried to discuss ending our tenancy early as we were in a position where we could by our own house, they couldn’t have been less helpful if they tried. They failed to mention that we could have had a break clause in our tenancy but this would have had to be done at our request. The responses we had from them felt generated and I don’t think they actually ever answered a question directly. They mentioned we could request early release but made this out that it would cost us a lot of money and would be unlikely to happen. We later informed them that we were in the process of buying a new property and would be leaving the house when that is completed but as stated in the tenancy would remain responsible for looking after the property. It wasn’t until the landlord visited and I assume told them off that they were remotely interested in ‘helping us out’ so we weren’t paying out money for our mortgage and the rental. All of a sudden they actually seem bothered and they did find new tenants. Their interest in us soon dropped when they would give us estimated check out dates and not inform us of any progress. I emailed them on many occasions asking for updates including 2 days before the planned checkout for them to return with ‘references haven’t come back yet so we cannot give you a time frame’ There was a bit more back and forth but we finally got out. The final part of our story with Martin and Co is regarding our deposit, as requested we had the carpets professionally cleaned and myself and my partner cleaned that house top to bottom, bar some small bits of wear and tear the property was near spotless. The inventory clerk even commented on how well the property had been maintained and parts of it were in a better condition then what they were when we moved in. Obviously they found things wrong, from our experience with them we knew they would pick some things, they seem the type. Dust on a lampshade, a small mark in the drawer where a saucepan has been, some limescale and some patchy grass. They have tried to charge us £50 for this which is absolutely ridiculous. We have tried to come to an agreement with them and we would be willing to contribute to the grass however not £50. Even though we have been good tenants and have taken great care of the property and have caused no problems they were not interested in coming to a compromise on this and if we did not go through this adjudicator system they threatened a court order.
They have been unprofessional and at times rude and don’t seem bothered about you unless they want something.
Avoid this company!!!