Williamhbrown Avis 

Where to begin…
I sadly, and naively put my trust in WHB to sell my property. This was against my better judgment foolishly, and that of the advice from many people to avoid this company.
This mistake quickly became apparent.
Once a price had been agreed between myself and the buyer on my property, I was told by the agent that the buyer was a good friend of theirs over the phone. I must admit that I felt there was a conflict of interest straight away rather than seeing this as a positive thing. Naively again, I followed the prompt from the same agent upon agreement to cancel all viewings booked the following week as a part of the agreement requested by the buyer…again, I foolishly went along with it. I believed that this was all part of the deal and perhaps what you would do. The overwhelming feeling of the same agent no longer working in my interest, but that of their friend (my buyer) became very apparent that this was in fact true…my concern was real!!
My property was hidden from view online and given a sold label within a few days of the agreement. I get the sold signs going up quickly, but when other agents are calling me asking why my property has completely disappeared from view…even STC, you then wonder why? They innocently called asking if I had changed my mind selling my property…pointing out that it is normally still online with STC…mine had vanished completely. I later find that after what felt like a delay in the sale proceedings was explained, when amazingly my buyer (my agents friend) had somehow viewed and agreed an offer for another property that hadn’t even gone live on the market, not even by the time they had informed me over the phone that mine had fallen through. All this done by the same agent! So just to clarify, my house was prevented from gaining any interest from other potential buyers by being put “on hold” whilst the agent was busy selling them another property. Agent being the one potentially being paid by me to work in my interest that is by the way.
I work with complete transparency and honesty, this is absolutely not the case with this branch in particular it seems. Again, perhaps it is nativity on my part.
This horrendous experience has had a large impact on me both emotionally and financially. This causing me a great deal of stress impacting my health.
Don’t get me wrong, sales fall through as people pull out for various reasons I understand, but this wasn’t a simple case of that here clearly.
I am still stunned even now to be honest. Worst of all, upon contacting Connells Group (WHB head office) I was basically dismissed with a complete avoidance of what had actually happened here.
One positive…if I could possibly find one that is, is that WHB were very quick to release me from my contract with them straight away. I am thankful for this now at least, but this wasn’t straight forward either as you can imagine.
My naturally unpleasant experience has taught me a valuable lesson about trust. I wish I had listened to the good advice given to me by others in the first place.

Appalling service . . zero communication, poor photography, they are better off suited to the sub £200K market . . stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap approach

Northampton branch, Tim, Jade, Kristina and Adam, helpful from day dot, always there at end of line, very considerate, kind, caring and respectful, if I could rate higher than 5 * I would, they all went above and beyond, made a difficult situation easier to handle. I highly recommend William H Brown they’re all a credit to the company!! Thank you so very much guys 🩷

Complete failure of fully managed service, gross negligence, and total misrepresentation!!!

I strongly advise landlords to avoid using William H. Brown Doncaster for a fully managed service. We pay for their "Fully Managed" service, yet experienced appalling incompetence and negligence. The branch officially informed us that our tenant had returned keys, given verbal notice to the Branch Manager, and moved away, leading us to agree to terminate the tenancy. Weeks later, the agency admitted they never actually inspected the property or verified vacant possession, and the tenant was still living inside with a second set of keys while owing months of unpaid rent. Furthermore, because the branch failed to conduct a check-out inspection within the required 48-hour window, our claim under the Zero Deposit scheme was severely compromised. Despite charging us for a full management contract, branch staff even attempted to pass off deposit claims and property checks for us to handle ourselves. The lack of basic due diligence, communication breakdowns, and false updates provided by this branch have left us with a non-paying occupier and huge legal headaches. Exercise extreme caution with William H. Brown.

Very poor.

Cancelled an appointment twice due to head office not communicating with branch. Branch rescheduled appointment and then canceled on the day saying the agent was ill.

This same agent was cancelled earlier this year due to hospitalization of a child.

There is no spare capacity in the Doncaster branch.

Whilst I sympathise with the the agents plight, it is the branch and the manager at fault.

A very busy scheduled day had to be changed.

Choosing William H Brown (Maldon) to sell our home was a huge mistake. We told them from the start that we needed a quick sale because of personal circumstances, and they assured us they could help. But there was no real plan. They listed the property on Rightmove and waited for people to show interest.

We accepted an offer within a week, only to later discover we’d been given incorrect information about the length of the buyer’s chain. A few weeks later, the buyer pulled out. We didn’t get a clear explanation, and William H Brown didn’t seem particularly interested in finding out why.

After the house went back on the market, we heard nothing for weeks. When we tried to call the branch, we couldn’t get through for three days. We had to contact another branch and ask them to leave a message. We told William H Brown we wanted to end our contract because we were unhappy with the service, but were told we couldn’t.

Then came three viewings, including one buyer who came back for a second look. We were told he liked the house and wanted to make an offer. A week passed. When we chased, we were told he was looking at cheaper properties and might get back to them the following week. Another week went by, with no update and, as far as we could tell, no follow-up from William H Brown. It was infuriating to watch a promising buyer drift away while we had to keep chasing the agent to do anything.

In the end, we sold through William H Brown’s auction partner — to the same person who had viewed our home through William H Brown. We estimate we lost £25,000–£30,000 on the property and paid commission to both companies. We’re left asking why the interested buyer wasn’t properly followed up in the first place.

The communication problems continued during the sale. The buyer’s survey company called us the night before its appointment because it had been trying unsuccessfully to reach William H Brown for over a week. If even the survey company couldn’t get through, it makes you wonder how many other opportunities were missed.

Our experience was that William H Brown had no meaningful plan beyond listing the house and suggesting a price reduction, gave us little in the way of updates, and failed to follow up with a buyer who was already interested. When we complained, we were pushed towards an auction partner instead of being offered a convincing plan to improve the service.

I would not recommend William H Brown to anyone selling a home. We paid a premium and, in our experience, got poor communication and very little proactive effort in return. Choosing them was one of our biggest regrets.

We rented our property out with William H Brown managing it in Suffolk. It started fine, tenant was found and all was good, however communication broke down quickly afterwards. When originally signing up with them we didn't know it was all outsourced through 'sequence', if we had known, and read reviews then we would have avoided it at all costs. They were just absolutely atrocious at communication, emails not answered, no clear answers, had to be chased up for everything. They didn't provide the rental factsheet to tenant even after checking with them that they had, this could result in huge fines so glad we checked with the tenant and then did it ourselves. It was also a mission to leave them, 6 months notice (which was in the agreement and with how useless they are they obviously rely on that), all while they were totally incompetent. We now manage the property ourselves and it is so much easier and without all their hidden fees. £100 for a letter etc. Please do not use William H Brown or Sequence in any way to rent your property, the stress caused and total ineptitude is not worth it. There must be better agents out there.

Callum from theDownham Market branch has been so helpful since day1 when he came to view my property for rental purposes. He is very knowledgeable which is vital, but his extra qualities give him the edge. His communication skills are excellent..always available to answer any queries. Very quick to respond . He is very approachable, warm and friendly, yet still keeping a very professional demeanor.
I couldn't rate him highly enough...if I could give 10 stars I would!! Thank youCallum and William H Brown for your very high customer service.

I have just re registered with them (2nd time) on the back of a complaint due to lack of communication re properties which I had to give them information for type of property required and budget (felt exhausting). Why did this company remove me from their mailing list after 3 years without my consent, it’s unacceptable. There needs to be a more fair and respectful process and they just left me hanging. Also discovered they’re a franchise company so that explains why they treat the public like trash…..need to improve their service for sure…..

Matthew, Harry and Tia were such a great help in selling and buying especially with some solicitor issues they helped navigate us through any stress and were so helpful all the way through highly recommend

Had our house on the market for nearly 7 months. Had 3 phone calls from William H Brown during that time. Had only 1 viewing. Reduced the price and still no communication with the agent. When complained about the lack of service, we were told we had updates on the Portal. The Portal is basically data analytics for properties in the area, all data that is self generated.
Not happy with the service and will be marketing with a professional agent soon.

This branch of William H Brown should not be trusted. We thought our agent was acting in our best interest, but in fact they were acting for a close friend which they neglected to inform us of in writing (which they should have done legally). It meant our sale was initially going through, but with out our knowledge, the agent was finding other houses which were not yet on the market for their friend.
Whilst we are happy that other houses may come onto the market while the legal process takes place, the house that was purchased was not live on any website.
It was at that point that communication broke down, phone calls and emails not answered. In the end we got out of the contract.
Don’t touch these people!!!

WH Brown in Oakwood, Leeds in my opinion, are the most unprofessional, detached, disinterested estate agents. As this was my very first experience as a seller, I expected some excellent service, being that they are a long time agent in the LS8 area, but it has completely exhausted and severely affected my wellbeing due to my personal circumstances for selling the house. The Manager of the Branch, I feel can be quite dismissive and arrogant, he doesn't give the impression of someone acting in the client's best interest. I would not recommend this estate agent to anyone thinking of selling or buying a property with them

Used as a Brooker for my first mortgage 6 yrs ago. Used them twice on renewals as a life time member - each time paid £99 admin fee (for pratically nothing) plus broker get over £200 from lender for my application.

This year, far more clued up and do not use William H Brown as brooker. They charge you £99 fee for what? (Call it admin fee) plus they get money from the lender. already.

Use Mojo (excellent) or go directly to your lender (for rate deals) if you have an existing mortgage already. Cuts out all the unnecessary so-called 'admin fee' or what William H Brown call 'life time member'.

Disappointed in William H Brown for taking customers naivety for granted.

PETERBOROUGH OFFICE. An Estate Agent that can’t be bothered to try and sell our property. The worst estate agent we have ever had the misfortune to use. Cannot follow simple instructions. Us chasing them all the time. Not responding to telephone messages or emails. Absolutely useless in all respects.

Absolutely horrendous service, all talk and no follow-through.

We were visited by the Rotherham branch and given a very convincing sales pitch about their ‘exceptional service’, how they were different from other estate agents, and the added value they would provide. This included signposting us to appropriate properties, meeting their mortgage brokers and giving us advice on putting offers in on other properties, none of this happened or was even pursued despite this being raised to them. Unfortunately, once the contract was signed, the promises seemed to disappear along with the communication.

Despite requiring to pay more for their services than other agents, we’ve had very limited viewings over a period of months, with very little evidence of proactive work being done on our behalf. They are clearly incompetent. Trying to contact them is an ordeal in itself, getting through to anyone on the phone is incredibly difficult, and when we do manage to speak to someone, we’re repeatedly told they’ll call us back and apologies offered. But this doesn’t translate into anything.

We’ve had to conduct the majority of viewings ourselves, which has been extremely inconvenient. The viewings that have been arranged have included cancellations, no-shows and buyers who were clearly inappropriate for the property.

The explanations are always the same every time you do get hold of them. Staff are on holiday, staff are off sick, someone will call us back, someone will look into it. But there is very little follow-through.

What makes this even more frustrating is that we’ve received better advice, communication and support from the agents representing properties we’ve simply gone to view than we have from the agent we are supposed to be paying to sell our home.

We are genuinely angry that we didn’t check the reviews more carefully before signing up. The initial sales pitch was impressive, but our experience since signing the contract has been completely different.

In our experience, this has been all talk and no action. If you’re considering using this estate agent, we would encourage you to choose someone else who has the capacity and competency to deliver.

Deal with William h brown at your peril . The motto of the parent company Skipton building society is "Founded on Fairness" but I think it should be "looking after number one".
Two weeks prior to completion day (which I only know now)I went into William h brown to ask for details about my the completion only to be told by James in the Dewsbury branch "what about it" and when I looked stocked to him he said "have you got a problem" .
Through the full nine months dealing with William h brown I was passed from pillar to post and they seem to forget regular people don't deal with house sales all the time
This is not me having a axe to grained but anyone out there please stay clear of William h brown.

The state Agent special in Hull area w H brown sent via email Asking on sale property Fees service All chages arround £2500/-
with not including Solicitors fees it mean you have totally given their pocket-
They not charging the property price on commission base -
I told them straight away Not satisfied Absolutely Not -

I've recently rented a property through WHB Norwich from mid August. The process was fairly easy despite all the paperwork required nowadays. Almost everything was done electronically and when I visited the office, each time the service was for practical purposes faultless. The inventory company used seems to have produced an inventory raising a few minor questions/clarifications. So far there is good communication with the Landlord involved.

At first great but towards the end getting our deposit back was disgusting , being told the deposit scheme people do not have a number and we can’t call them , to finding out we can and they do 15 days later still no despot back , they deducted money for left over furniture at our old house but can’t provide an invoice for this , got promised we would have it back and it’s left there accounts department and we will receive it by 4-6pm it’s now 20:39 and still no deposit back . We have been lied to and been given miss led information by Spalding branch and I find it truly disrespectful 24 calls to there branch over 48 hours 2 voicemails and 3 emails and 72 hours later we finally got a reply .