Connells Avis 

Connells Kings Heath - Birmingham
An absolute disaster from start to finish. Staff left without passing on our details and missed appointments with no warning. We waited 3 weeks for a mortgage advisor who never got in touch. Teams were rude, broke promises, lied about having no head office, and confirmed viewings were no-shows. It is clear they have absolutely no interest in selling our home. We raised this directly with the Director, but he brushed us off and passed us to the complaints department who won’t even answer. We have formally terminated our instruction and asked them to remove their for-sale board – go elsewhere.

Please please do not use this company. I dealt with the Northampton office. I am a Landlord. Nearly 8 months on I have received no rent dealing with Olivia Williams in the legal department have very little communication from her. Taken rent protection and have received not 1 single penny they are supposed to pay out after 2 months. My health has deteriorated as a result of this.

Absolutely appalling experience – avoid Connells if you value honesty and transparency.

My experience with Connells has been nothing short of a nightmare. I feel completely misled, trapped, and let down from start to finish.

When Jon came to value my property, he never clearly explained that by signing the paperwork I was committing myself to a 26-week sole agency agreement. Instead, I was rushed through the documents and repeatedly told it was simply their “standard procedure.” At no point was the significance of being tied exclusively to Connells for six months properly brought to my attention.

If Jon had been transparent and clearly explained that I would be locked into a 26-week contract regardless of whether Connells performed or not, I would never have signed it.

Once the agreement was signed, the service was incredibly disappointing.

Over the course of the agreement, Connells completely failed to sell my property. They repeatedly brought viewers who were clearly not in a genuine position to buy. Some didn’t have suitable employment contracts to obtain a mortgage, others hadn’t even sold their own properties, and many simply appeared to be wasting everyone’s time. It felt like they were more interested in increasing viewing numbers than actually finding a qualified buyer.

The communication was equally poor. After almost every viewing, I had to chase Connells for feedback. Rather than keeping me informed as you would expect from a professional estate agent, I was constantly left waiting, calling and emailing just to find out what had happened. It was exhausting and incredibly frustrating.

As weeks turned into months with absolutely no progress, I felt completely helpless. I had lost all confidence in Connells’ ability to sell my property, yet because of the 26-week sole agency agreement, I couldn’t simply instruct another estate agent without potentially facing financial consequences. I felt trapped in a contract with a company that was delivering little in return.

To make matters worse, when I raised my concerns, Connells showed no willingness to acknowledge how the agreement had been presented to me. Instead, they simply hid behind the small print of the contract and insisted that because I had signed it, I was bound by the 26-week term. There was no accountability, no understanding, and certainly no attempt to resolve the situation fairly.

Looking back, I genuinely believe the emphasis was placed on getting my signature rather than ensuring I fully understood the long-term commitment I was making. Being told something is “standard procedure” should never replace giving a customer a clear explanation of a six-month contractual obligation.

The whole experience caused unnecessary stress and wasted months of valuable time during which my property could have been marketed by a more competent and proactive agent.

If you’re considering using Connells, my advice is simple: be extremely careful. Read every single word of the agreement, ask direct questions about any sole agency period, and don’t let yourself be rushed into signing anything. Once you’ve signed, you may find yourself locked into months of poor service with very little you can do about it.

I would never use Connells again and would not recommend them to anyone looking for an honest, transparent, and customer-focused estate agent. My experience was overwhelmingly negative from beginning to end.

Update 16/07/26;
After a visit to Ashford Park Farm branch and discussing our deposit with the visiting area director, our deposit is finally being processed. Within the hour he had contacted our ex-landlord, arranged for the appropriate team to set up the transfer of funds, and even offered a compensatory gesture of good will.

Our overall experience of Park Farm during our tenancy remains negative, however if I could rate on individual performance: 5* for the area director who is unfortunately let down by an incompetent branch manager Georgia, and an impossibly rude and incompetent letting agent Izzy. 5* for agent Leisha(?) who has always been polite and helpful on the phone, even if she wasn't trained to process deposit returns. Perhaps further train & promote her and the branch's reputation, for lettings at least, would improve.
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We moved out almost 3 weeks ago & all our requests for the return of our deposit (over £2k) has been ignored by the Ashford Park Farm branch.

Forced to open a claim via the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, lodge a formal complaint to Head Office and if still not returned we'll have to contact The Property Ombudsman.

How this company is repeatedly permitted to exploit the 10 day deposit loophole is beyond me. They essentially ignore all requests to inform ex-tenants of any disputed amounts by the landlord. Until the amount to be returned is agreed on, the 10 days legal requirement to return your deposit doesn't begin. Shameful practice.
But not a complete a surprise, since throughout the 3 year tenancy they have been consistently useless. We had water dripping from the living room ceiling which took them months to even bother sending someone round. We had wire shoved down the chimney to prevent birds from accessing - when smoke started filling the living room the chimney was condemned by the sweep we hired, Connells then sent their own round who approved it. Contractors were sent to fit a proper bird deterrent, and while there they informed us the chimney was damaged and in danger of falling down (due to the TV aerial being fixed to it). They removed the aerial, but Connells have to-date ignored this potential danger of collapse. We had sewage pouring from the drain outside the kitchen window within weeks of taking on the rental. The boiler was over 30 years old and each time the engineer came out to crank it back up when it lost the will, he'd shake his head & tell us it should be replaced. The ensuite shower was unusable (unless you like a cold trickle). Their solution was to fix a new head - FYI Connells - zero difference. The loft latch door fell off and left a substantial dent in the wall - thankfully nobody was underneath it and an unsightly repair job was done. We put rose baskets around the garden fence & received a message from Connells accusing us of allowing the garden to become overgrown despite regular maintenance. The list of incompetencies goes on (and all the time the rental cost increases, £1900pmth, I kid you not).

Prior to this we had rented for many years and never had any issues and always received our full deposit back within a week (particularly as we generally leave a property in better condition than we receive it). Since dealing with Connells we have since made the decision to no longer rent and have purchased our own home, vowing never to deal with this agent again (there were many properties we would have considered for purchase - including our rental - if it weren't for the sale agent being Connells).

Ignore the warnings on here and it will unfortunately most likely come back to bite you.

Good luck - if it's Connells you'll most definitely need it.

I'll update when we finally get our deposit back...

Connells based in Cannock, Staffordshire.

Awful experience.
I will update this review when our sale completes and our formal complaint concludes.

Poor at communication, you have to chase them for feedback on your viewing. When you do you are chasing for days for a call back.

Called up to get feedback on our viewing as we waited for the agent to turn up so we could have a chat first... the agent never turned up. We left just in case and when we checked our CCTV, they never came to the house. When we called up to ask why, they gave us feedback and when we said we checked the CCTV and saw they never attended the viewing he was a little thrown and agreed they didn't attend the viewing. I would not trust this company to sell your home.

Treat tenants poorly. Had to chase for over a month at the end of tenancy to get 3 months over paid rent refunded to me!!!
Now having to fight to get my deposit back.
See BBC Panorama about this Estate Agents practice's.

Lack of communication. Making up conversations, I wish I recorded them as well. Doing price reductions without permission. Avoid.

Katie in particular was really helpful and kind in the Peterborough branch. She went up and beyond in helping me with the sale of my property.
When we hit a roadblock (which were many from my solicitors side!) she did everything she could to help resolve the issues. Even though this wasn’t her responsibility she was really helpful in chasing up both sides to get the sale moving forward. And finally we completed yesterday after a very stressful 15 months!
Thank you Katie. I would recommend connells and if you have the pleasure of working along with Katie you will not be disappointed.

Terrible experience. Lovely staff though. NO actual advice given. Didn't sell it but equally gave no advice about the little changes we could have made which would have helped us. The tenant left it in bad condition and we never visited the property. We relied on them to give us advice, they marketed it, conducted viewings but not once did they say - you should do x & y and this will help the sale. Persuaded us to use their auction option as 'in all the years of me working here, we've never not sold one at auction' - ours didn't sell and we had to pay £6k. We removed it, went on with another agent having done some work and then it sold straight away.

Useless. Don’t want to help or speak to you unless it is regarding you paying rent.
Property management do not follow anything up or rush to complete any jobs.
The property I was renting had no hot water and no heating in the middle of winter and I had to chase property management for months to even get them to get someone out to look at the issues I was having.
If my dream home came up and estate agent was Connells, I wouldn’t even consider renting / buying it.

Unfortunately I made a mistake to trust connells of Harrow to let mo properly in harrow. Please stay away from this people.
They let my property and from day one they was collecting the the rent and kept the money up to 3 weeks before they paid in to my account.. never reply emails and messages and never anybody there to talk to.
On the last 2 months I had to ask the tenants to pay straight in to my account.
A very frustrating 13 months.
When tenants moved out Theo was some damage to the flat… Tenants agreed a cost to be detached from the deposit and emailed connells to confirm.
Nothing happened despite the numbers of reminders emails and messages from maysself and tenants.
5 weeks after tenants moved out I received a email from connells saying can’t make a claim from “zero deposit” because over 28 days have passed since tenants moved moved out…
That’s is insulting my intelligence!
Zero deposit have now confirmed that I won’t be able to claim because of the 28 day deadline!
I have just lost £800 because of they’re disorganisation and negligence.
Stay away as a tenant or as a landlord!

Recently sold my house via Connells in Bedford. We had a great service. The valuation was spot on. My house needed a fair bit of work however they used this as a selling point. Had two offers within the first few days. Communication was great, really responsive. Helped with queries and really advocated to ensure we had the value for our home. Felt they really looked out for us. Can't thank the team at Bedford enough.

Rent properly
Delt with lois from lettings in coventry
Dreadful people who hsve massively let my daughter regardingthe rental in elderbrrry way wyken coventry and refused to refund the holding fee

They have been holding my deposit since March with no reason at all. We spoke to the landlord personally and agreed an amount which we sent an email detailing and still they don’t want to process our deposit. The one star is for Naomi and Ben from the hitchin office everybody else is useless

Most stupid people working in this Connells agency. unprofessional. In fact, they are also Childish. Non-serious including the letting and complaint department.
Manager Luke
Agent Oliver Montgomery
Hannah rocks from complaint department and there is one more idiot.
They are handing over the keys of the property which is full of mould damp broken electric switches wires full of garbage in the house. And on the top if the Customer is refusing to move into that property, they are stealing the rent in advance and the security deposit as well below are few of the photos of the property which they handed over to me to move in after 1 1/2 month of the given time. £2560 are still with them and my case is still going on. I would love to provide the photos of the property, however don’t believe.

I would like to thank Sahil Mohammed letting agent based in Wolverhampton for his professional conduct and help through the process of letting a property for us.
He has been punctual professional and prompt on providing updates.
May I also commend Beth and Sophie for answering calls when Sahil was away from office.
Would definitely use them again when required and recommend

Connells (Canterbury) managed a property which I rented for almost nine years. Whilst they were kind of adequate in managing the property and would respond reasonably quickly to any maintenance issues their behaviour when it came to return the deposit was appalling. They attempted to withold £895 of a total deposit of £1378. They claimed this was for cleaning and damage repair but I cleaned the property thoroughly before I left and nothing in the house was damaged. I raised a dispute about this with the Tenancy Deposit Scheme which was a bit of a pain to do and took quite a long time to be resolved but, ultimately, I received the full disputed deposit back. Another friend of mine who rented through Connells had a very similar experience and didn't receive any of his deposit back. They're basically thieves and obviously view not returning the deposit as a means to make money. I would never rent anything through Connells again because of this and I'd advise people to be very, very wary because I suspect they try to do this with everyone. They also don't really reply to any email correspondence and still, four months after I moved out have not returned the undisputed amount of the deposit. I only received the full disputed amount of the deposit back from TDS because they didn't bother submitting any of their evidence which just shows how incompetent they are generally. I'd advise everyone to go via TDS or whatever deposit holding scheme it is (I think there are a few) if you have a similiar problem to me with the agents witholding an unreasonable amount of the deposit. I think Connells are just thieves and I would never, ever deal with them again. Hope their business closes.

I can not praise James from Connells Grantham enough, from the first meet and viewings through a challenging process to rent a property he was faultless. Nothing was too much, he gave his all and helped and updated me constantly. I am so very grateful for everything he did and the support I got before during & after I got my tenancy agreement. I had dealing with a couple of others at Connells and they too were amazing.
Thank you James for everything, I highly recommend Connells.

Kirsty from the accounts team from Connells, she really helped me from start to finish with my query, considering our urgent situation we’re currently dealing with - she made sure to do everything she could to help us out and went above and beyond for us. Really glad I spoke with her.