Sam Properties

Renting with Sam Properties for now will be my 4^th year, I think I can say they have been my best agents so far. I have been renting for the best part of 10 years now so I have experienced it all.
Overall their service is very good but there are two points that have stood out and that is their response time and their treatment towards me during a very difficult period.
Point one: Whenever I have reported a maintenance or neighbour issue (which is rare), I am always shocked at how quickly it takes them to respond to my needs.
I must admit they weren’t the quickest to respond in my first year renting with them but whatever system they operate now, its impressively efficient.
Point two: There was a period when I was made redundant, I went to them straight away to explain my situation and they took the time to work with me to see what options we had. They were understanding about rent payment issues and they helped set up payment plans so I could pay what was within my means. As soon as I got back to work, I repaid my arrears but I can only be thankful for their support during the difficult months.
I have recommended friends to rent with Sam Properties and none of them have regretted it.

Sam Properties does not deserve a single star, if Unilocal did a minus star scheme then Sam’s would be minus about 100 stars. This is THE WORST rental agency I have ever used in the city and I can’t quite believe how charlatan’s like this are still allowed to operate with aparantly no outside investigations to check that they are not ripping students off ten-​fold.
Student accommodation is a mine field at the best of times, but Sam’s really does take the biscuit and the bronze, silver, gold and platinum award for most incompetent service, add to that their behaviour is less thatn honorable = do not even think about using them for housing services!
We looked around a 5 bed in Fallowfield, your bog-​standard, bit shoddy, but livable, red brick house and decided it would do, cause hey, it’s the people that you’re living with that count the most right? We did this fairly early in the house hunting cycle and agreed with Sam’s about what needed to be done before we arrived as it was clear that there was a slight damp problem. After happliy taking our deposit and a ‘finding’ fee, they assured us the work would be done by the summer so we left in good faith. After a few months we went to check on their progress and this is where the trouble began. We requested to see the house and the answer was no, no, and no again, why you may ask, well we just got a ‘no’ to that too. In the end we were so suspicious that we called round ourselves, only to find the poor girls living there living in sqalor (the ones left that is, as 2 had already jumped ship) with the worst damp I’ve ever seen. The back bedrooms were dripping with the stuff, and one girl said that her text books, her shoes and even her clothes had all gone mouldy. The other girl had had to leave as her asthma had got so bad she could even sleep. Sam had done absolutely nothing and the girls were actually trying to force legal action on them.
This house was not not fit for rats and there was no way a bit of a re-​paint, or what ever shoddy idea Sam’s suggested to us, that could to save it.
Sam’s kept our deposits, our fee, and actaully tried to force us to move in under ‘legal’ pretence’s (as obviously no one on this planet was going to want to live there after seeing it’s current state). To cut a long story short it was a nightmare and they really behaved dispicably. I’m a laid back guy, but even thinking back to this makes my blood boil and to this day they still owe us money.
I only wish we’d done our research first as apparently this place is well known for being the worst place around. I only hope that every perspective renter now gets to read this review before they make the same mistake as we did.