Decent estate agents

Anyone know any decent estate agents in London? After meeting a whole bunch of estate agents while looking for a flat, I've come to the conclusion that there is a lot of dishonesty in this business. I never had this problem back home because in America I always went directly to the apartment manager who would show me the apartment and then I would rent it, but here in the UK, it is usually done through estate agents who earn a commission for finding you a place. My problem is that the estate agents are not very upfront with me, and other customers. There also seem to be a lot of dodgy landlords and apartment managers in London also. I was dealing with a guy (Concept studio apartments) who wanted to charge me money for not defrosting a fridge, and basically wanted to charge per rubbish item left behind. I never encountered anything like that back home, and hope that I won't have to again here. My current landlord now doesn't return any of my phone calls or emails, so I am hoping to move somewhere with a landlord or manager that actually acknowledges my concerns. The estate agent's excuse was that the landlord is a very busy "businessman". Has anyone out there had positive experiences with landlords and managers, or is it just a slim chance of that happening here?

If you're in London there should be loads of private landlord rentals. Look at Loot & Gumtree ads.

I rent a flat through Hamptons and have had very nice experience with their management. Concerns are handled quickly and they usually arrange repairs for the next business day if anything is broken.

However, I only ended up with this agent accidentally cause I happened to like the flat they advertised, not because I worked with them only or specifically.

I think I saw flats listed by just about every neighborhood agent when I was looking since I was just looking up flats I liked on online listing sites.

We've rented through two different agencies, both of which were/are scarily incompetent.  One was a very large agency and one was a smaller, neighborhood-focused one with only 2 offices.  In neither case did the agency manage the flat, though.  Ours have both been owner-managed.  I'm sure there are some good apples out there, but at least in central London, it seems safer to expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised.

According to our lease, both this one and the last actually, we'd be charged for not defrosting a fridge or removing rubbish -- I believe it was per item for large items and per bag for smaller ones.  I think that's pretty standard here.  

ETA:  Actually, if we'd left trash in our apartments in the US, they'd have charged us, too. 

I've lived in eight flats in London, six with private landlords and two through agents. I have not had too many problems with the private landlords (though in this, I think I was very lucky) but both agencies were nightmares, and I probably would not go through an agency in future unless I really had to. I wish I could recommend a good agency (they must be out there) but I don't know anyone who's had a positive experience with one.

It is usual to charge for defrosting or rubbish left behind (but my landlords in the states would have done this as well). My uni puts out this list of common cleaning charges at move-out, for private flats:

Kitchen   200-320 pounds
Defrosting  30
Bathroom   40
Removal of small items and rubbish  20
Dusting and vacuum  75
Carpet clean   35-50

HOW much for kitchen cleaning?? 

for real. That's just extortionate.

Sounds like private landlords is the way to go. I was originally quite drawn into the UK's sophisticated way of listing their flats online, and that is what made me go with the agencies. I never saw this back home. I had always just driven around, and whatever apartments looked decent, I would just go in and ask if they had any vacancies. I have checked out gumtree here in Britain, but I have heard of people doing scams on there. I rented a room once from gumtree, and the primary renter who was subletting turned out to be pretty dodgy and went through my stuff, and even had people sleeping in my bed when I wasn't there. My previous landlord here in Britain (Concept studio apartments) demanded that I clean the flat, and he charged 80 pounds. If I didn't clean it, he would've charge me more. That didn't make sense to me because if I am cleaning it, why am I paying him. It was a tiny little place too. Probably the size of a dorm room at an average American university.

It's too bad because when I first moved here, gumtree wasn't as well known and was mostly just private landlords; now it's so full of agents, it's annoying if you don't want to deal with them. But it's probably still the best place to look for private rentals. There is also www.moveflat.co.uk -- although they tend to be a bit pricier.

I know, the kitchen cleaning charge I listed above seems crazy! On the other hand, a really filthy kitchen will take ages to clean and can be really nasty, so I guess it's assuming the worst.

I don't necessarily mind *reasonable* charges, I just wish there was some consistency. On our recent move, our old landlord wanted to deduct an unreasonable amount from our deposit because we didn't dust the hall lamps (just forgot; it would literally take 10 seconds) while our new landlord didn't care that the previous tenants left the place completely filthy.  So we had to spend hours scrubbing the old flat to get our deposit back, then spend hours scrubbing our new flat just to move in. Grrr...

Found this article today which is scary.  No education or certifications needed to set up shop as an estate agent in the UK!!!

Who can be an estate agent?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4829330.stm

Found this article today which is scary.  No education or certifications needed to set up shop as an estate agent in the UK!!!

It doesn't mean they're all crooks and swindlers.  Some people have spent many years of their lives building up careers as established, reputable professionals in this field.   

No it doesn't, but I am a bit surprised that there is no licence required. It explains a bit, although we've encountered some really good agents as well.

One important thing to remember is that Estate Agents do a different job than American "Realtors".  All the legal, conveyancing work that Realtors do is done by a Conveyancing Solicitor an Estate Agent is basically a sales person - hence no need for certification.

Just my opinion but I think a lot of the complaints on here about bad Estate Agent service are because people are expecting them to behave as a Realtor.  They're basically used-house-salesmen and they work for the seller not the buyer.

I think some people posting here mean letting agents rather than estate agents.  Some letting agents are also estate agents but a lot are not. Letting agents act on the landlord's behalf.

I think some people posting here mean letting agents rather than estate agents.  Some letting agents are also estate agents but a lot are not. Letting agents act on the landlord's behalf.

"Estate agent" is often used as a generic, colloquial term to cover lettings AND/OR sales.  They work similarly, though, in that they 'work for' the landlord/seller NOT the tenant/buyer (though obviously it's in their interest to be professional with both!) because that is the person that pays their income.

PR, I would say you're right but native Brits moan about estate agents just as much as people from the USA that might be used to realtors (who do the conveyancing).  Though as a matter of trivia, the fees a realtor makes from a sale in the USA is much, much higher than a UK estate agent due to the fact that a realtor is a one-man band and an estate agent is just one person among several who deals with the sale of a property.

In a small defense, though there are no licensing requirements (and most 'decent' agents actually disagree with this and would love for it to more towards the American way), there are various professional qualifications an agent can voluntarily achieve, in addition to the professional associations an agency can join that 'police' the industry.

Sorry not to get defensive, I just feel bad that my husband loves his job but half the time is ashamed to tell people what he does for a living.

(for reference, this thread was started to talk about lettings, though, and not sales!)