Michael Anthony

I have rented houses since I left home at 18, that's further into double figures of years than I care to count. I have never come across an agent quite as incompetent as Michael Anthony. I recommend you avoid at all costs.

We initially rented our house, over the identical house up to let next door,because we prefered the estate agents (Michael Anthony) who showed us round. How we regret that!! It all started when we expressed an interest in keeping an eye on the housing market in Tring, as we love the area. Liam dropped us round a brochure for a property, and told us that, as we were already MA customers, they'd 'sort it out' to release us from our contract early. Well, numerous phone conversations passed, we were assured it was ok, nobody mentioned an early checkout cost of £500, and, as it turned out, they hadn't even mentioned this to the poor landlord! So, we wrote the landlord an apology letter ourselves, and moved into our new home, still paying rent until MA found someone else (3 months later). As we were preparing to check out, we asked MA to recommend a cleaner who would clean to their standards. We were then fairly surprised to read on the checkout inventory that the property had not been professionally cleaned and we were expected to sort this out!! Apparently, even though MA had moved checkout a day earlier, and it was therefore being cleaned on the last day we had access, it was our responsibility to go in and check the cleaning was good enough. Even more interesting are messages exchanged between myself and Paul Kingham at MA, on the day that we moved in, informing him that the kitchen was dirty and I'd had to re-clean it! I can only assume they're doing a mate a favour on the cleaning front, and pocketing the difference. We were also accused of removing shrubs from the garden and stealing a ladder, neither of which is true. I can only assume that they are in the same place as the cement hedgehog that we 'stole' (subsequently found in the front garden of the property). Our dealings with Michael Anthony cannot be over soon enough. I would advise tenants and landlords alike to avoid them like the plague - after all, having tenants lied to in order to encourage them to buy through that agents, then not informing landlords until very late in the process, trying to hold on to deposits due to faulty cleaners who they recommended...all adds up to a pretty rubbish experience at what should be an exciting time :-(