Philipjames Avis 

I had a very frustrating experience with Phillip James. They send out rental offers at 12am and then expect the holding deposit to be paid before 9am the next working day - an extremely unrealistic and unfair deadline, especially without any prior warning. We were also booked in for a viewing despite clearly stating our required move-in date beforehand. After going through the process and expressing genuine interest, our offer was rejected simply because we couldn't meet an earlier move-in date - something they already knew.

This kind of disorganised and inconsiderate approach wastes people's time and shows a complete lack of understanding for the needs of renters. I wouldn't recommend them based on our experience.

Jordana McVarnock and Neil Ryder at Philip James have been fantastic throughout the sales process of my flat. Communication has been excellent and Jordana chased the both sides to ensure sale was completed. I'm not sure the sale would have gone through without Jordana and Neil- a massive thank you to both and can highly recommend Philip James and in particular Jordana and Neil. Thank you!

Never replied to any emails or attempts to contact. Never got things sorted when asked. Took a massive amount of the deposit for charges that weren’t true. Would not recommend

Very poor rental viewing experience. I had a viewing cancelled 10 minutes before the slot, and after I had already arrived at the property, since the "tenant had decided to renew their tenancy on the property".

The next property I was viewing had its viewing slot cancelled 2 hours before the viewing time, and when I arrived at the new slot a week later, the agent arrived 5 minutes late when we were all standing out in the rain.

The final part of my awful experience was that during the viewing slot, the agent had no answers to any of my questions, and in the middle of the viewing, said, "I have already sent out the application form before the viewing, and it's first come, first served, so apply quickly!". Everybody in the room then proceeded to try desperately to apply as quickly as they could in the middle of the viewing. Clearly, the agent knew how desperate most people are to get a property, and wanted to guarantee that somebody would take the property, rather than allowing people time to think it over. Very unprofessional.

No one responded Rightmove messages or e-mails. Never picked up phone calls always unavailable. Requested call back on official website but nothing happened. And then somehow just took the flat off the platform silently. Pretty awful agency probably the worst I've ever seen.

I am writing this from a buyer’s perspective, but it’s important for sellers to read it.

I’ve never dealt with worse estate agents in my life! I’m not sure why people advertise their properties with them.

They are slow to book viewing. They book viewings at a time that suits their schedule rather than the buyer or vendor! When we made offers, they never came back to us. When we chased them, it was pretty obvious they’ve not put the offer to the vendors except after we chased them. We enquired about properties - they told us it’s no longer available / under offer. When we enquired with a different estate agent who had that property advertised with them too - it was available! I suspect somebody put an offer but it wasn’t accepted, they still said the property wasn’t available. Their communication skills are lacking, borderline rude! For somebody whose budget is £1.5 million, it is shocking. We fed back a couple of times to them, they weren’t interested.

If we weren’t desperate to move we’d never see properties with them.

I can highly recommend Philip James estate agents at the Heaton moor branch from start to finish the team have been outstanding responding to any queries and emails very swiftly
Well done to you and your team and a huge thank you

Don't bother. I was told it would be a quick and easy sale of my flat in West Didsbury. I used the conveyancing company they suggested and they were useless. I had to constantly chase updates from Philip James and the sale took 9 months in total. Not impressed.

A totally dishonest company who have tried to with hold deposits claiming that the flat wasn’t cleaned, in fact it was filthy when we moved in.
Students beware take lots of photos from the start and detail all issues you have, luckily we have detailed photos of the entire flat at the time of moving in and we will follow this matter through the tenancy deposit scheme.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Absolutely Outstanding Service from Kathrine at Phillip James Heaton Moor

I can’t praise Kathrine enough for her professionalism, warmth, and efficiency. From the very first interaction, she made the entire process smooth and stress-free. Her attention to detail, constant communication, and genuine care made all the difference.

It’s rare to come across someone who not only does their job so well but also truly goes the extra mile for their clients. Kathrine is a real asset to the Phillip James team — she turned what could have been a stressful experience into something easy and even enjoyable.

Thank you, Kathrine, for your dedication, kindness, and top-notch service. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend you to anyone!

We have just sold our house with Philip James in Manchester.
Kathrine was amazing, her knowledge and helpfulness was superb. We would definitely recommend Philip James.

We have recently purchased a property through Philip James and have been guided through a lot of the process by Kathrine Mook. She has truly been amazing. Kathrine has been really helpful through the entire process, responding to all our correspondence in a timely manner and explaining each step well. We could not recommend her enough!

We arranged a viewing of a property being advertised by Philip James.

We turned up on time. Their representative was a few minutes late, which we thought nothing of. He then took a while to get us into the property because he’d arrived without an external key and the access code he’d been given was incorrect. Again, we were willing to overlook this as he seemed nervous and fairly new to the job.

Once inside, however, it became apparent that he knew very little about the property he was showing us. Almost every question we asked was met with him referring to his file, only to discover that most of the answers weren’t actually in it.

Whether you’re new to the job or not, if you’re showing prospective buyers around a property, I’d expect you to spend some time familiarising yourself with it beforehand. Unfortunately, this guy was little more than a walking key.

Despite the poor experience, we liked the property and submitted an offer. After some back-and-forth, partly because the estate agent was trying to secure additional business by selling us property management services, our offer was accepted. We were told the relevant forms would be sent to us. This was on Monday.

By Friday, we still hadn’t received the forms or, indeed, any communication whatsoever from Philip James. We contacted them on Friday morning.

Still nothing arrived throughout Friday or over the weekend, so we contacted them again on Monday, initially by email and, after receiving no response, by phone later that day.

That’s when we were told that the seller had decided to put us “on hold” because another offer had been received from someone who viewed the property the day after ours was accepted. Apparently, he now wanted to consider the two offers side by side.

We were understandably unimpressed. The seller had accepted our offer, then apparently decided to keep shopping around, while the estate agent couldn’t even be bothered to tell us what was happening.

We therefore reduced our offer and gave them until the end of the day to respond. If the seller wanted to keep us as buyers, he could do so on revised terms. Otherwise, we’d walk away and purchase another property instead, something we would probably have already done had Philip James not wasted a week of our time.

We sent the following:

⸻

Hi Jordana,

The vendor already accepted our offer as confirmed by yourself in writing on the 9th, so we aren’t impressed by the radio silence since then or now being explicitly informed that we are “on hold”. If he accepted our offer then we would expect him to honour that, and if he wanted to hold out for a different offer then he should not have accepted ours.

Given the circumstances, we are updating the terms of our offer and are no longer including the gesture of paying half of the costs of the management of the property until the conclusion of the contract. The seller will now need to bear those costs in their entirety.

We will require the relevant forms and the updating or removal of the property listing by the end of the day or this offer will be fully withdrawn.

Regards,

Gareth

⸻

We received no response, so our offer was withdrawn.

More than two days later, Philip James finally sent us this:

⸻

Hello Gareth,

I hope you are well.

I am still waiting on the landlord as we have been informed that there is a doubling ground rent clause.

Would you like to withdraw your offer?

Thanks

⸻

🤦‍♂️

At this point, there are really only two possibilities:

a) The other buyer withdrew, the seller suddenly became interested in our offer again and Jordana was attempting to revive the deal.

b) Jordana was genuinely responding to an email she’d apparently failed to read, more than two days after the deadline had already passed.

We’ll never know which it was because, by that point, we’d already moved on.

The whole experience demonstrated a frankly disappointing level of communication, organisation and professionalism. From turning up to a viewing without the correct access information, to knowing almost nothing about the property, to leaving us without communication for days after our offer was accepted, the entire process was unnecessarily frustrating.

We’ve since moved on and will be avoiding properties listed through Philip James in future.

Patricia was extremely helpful, quick and professional with any questions or concerns I had. I Would recommend philip james to friends and family.

Neil Ryder has consistently provided good advice for my letting and sales needs. It is appreciated.

We had the absolute pleasure of working with Franca Carbone during our home-buying journey, and we truly couldn’t have asked for a better experience. She was professional, knowledgeable, and incredibly supportive every step of the way.

What really stood out was her responsiveness, and genuine care when things were not going as we expected.

Thanks to her guidance, what was a stressful process was bearable. We are happy with our new home and believe we got it at a good price. We cannot thank Franca enough.

Highly, highly recommended!

Montmano Drive

I recently purchased an apartment with the help of Georgina Smith at Phillip James, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the service I received from her, she was very professional, responsive, and incredibly supportive throughout the entire process.

Georgina kept me informed every step of the way, answered all of my questions promptly, and went above and beyond to make sure everything ran smoothly.

Thanks again Georgina.

Process easier to complete via a new portal than previous experience upon tenancy renewal. Staff based at Burton Road, West Didsbury very helpful and courteous as ever.

Derek

Thank you for your wonderful customer service. Your employee Maria Duffy was knowledgeable and informative

Tried to book a viewing for a property up for sale with Heaton Moor branch and Katherine was very pushy, insisting we could not book a viewing unless we agreed to an appointment with their in house mortgage advisor despite us already having a decision in principle through our own advisor which showed affordability. We ended up giving this property a miss.