Sarah Pickford in Oxford

Sarah is a really good landlord - she is quick to communicate and issues are dealt with promptly. She always lets us know with good notice if she is coming round or there is maintenance work going on. Repairs/maintenance have been arranged quickly and done to a good standard. When a larger bit of maintenance work needed to be done Sarah arranged for this to happen whilst we were away to prevent it being disruptive for us. She and her family maintain the garden and external areas of the flats as well as getting the corridors and stairways in the flats professionally cleaned. Sarah is very friendly and approachable and we have had no issues with her as our landlord.

Our landlady SJ Pickford is very nice. She was very welcoming when we moved in, and was quite flexible with our move in date and the contract. She is always polite and smiling when she comes over. She also furnished our apartment with nice furnitures for us so we were very grateful for this.
Communicating with her is easy since she created a whatsapp group. My housemate and I can easily get in touch with her. She sometimes replies shortly after our message (on the same day), but some other times it is longer so we have to text her again to get an answer.
Concerning privacy, a good point is that she makes sure to notice us before coming. However, sometimes she noticed us only few hours before coming, which does not give us enough time to reply before she actually comes.
She makes sure the garden is kept clean and tidy.
We can also count on her in case of emergency: once the carbon monoxyde detector rang and she was there in less that 1 hour. However, for less urgent issues she might take more time to react... Indeed, we had a problem with my housemate's bedroom door and nothing was done during month. As a result, she was sometimes staying stuck in her bedroom with was a bit annoying. But now the door is fixed so we are happy.
Overall, she is a reliable landlord and my housemate and I are very satisfied.

Sarah is a great landlord, she takes pride in her role and is keen to keep everything ship shape and in good order. We mostly communicate through WhatsApp which is convenient and Sarah is usually quick to respond. During our three year stay, we have always got on well with Sarah, and she even sent us a card and bottle of prosecco when we got married.

The landlady's behaviour was unacceptable. She repeatedly entered our rooms without any prior notice or our permission, which is a clear violation of our legal rights. This behaviour continued after reporting her to the Council. At one point I was negotiating with her whether she would stick to the legally required 24 hours notice before she would enter my room for viewings or to have maintenance done! This should not be up for negotiation.
She frequently visited the property, sometimes on a daily basis, to perform minor tasks. On one occasion, she even stored her own milk in our fridge, which, while within her legal rights, was disruptive and extremely odd.
She also installed a ‘sign-in board’, so that we could log when we were present in the property. This was intrusive and bizarre behaviour given that we are all adults. I suspect she did this so that she could more easily tell who was in the property when she would enter for “maintenance” reasons.
Fundamentally, I feel she fails to understand that while the property is her house, it is our home, and we have a right privacy within it.
Moreover, she was incredibly slow in addressing essential repairs. For instance, earlier this year one of the showers was removed from the bathroom – it took a month for this to be replaced. Our bedrooms also experienced an issue where the electricity would trip whenever we plugged certain devices (phones and laptops) in to charge: this obviously made it impossible to work or study in our bedrooms, and was a serious impediment to our daily lives. Her proposed solution was to charge devices in the kitchen – this is clearly unacceptable in an HMO where you do not know your flatmates before moving in! It took over a month, and threatening to report her to the council, for her to fix this issue.
In addition to these issues, she overcharged me on my deposit and tried to impose illegal fees related to cleaning. The process of getting my deposit back has been incredibly challenging. She provided a confusing Deposit Deductions form where the figures did not add up to the amount she wanted to withhold from my deposit. Despite my repeated requests for clarification, she failed to provide any.
Overall, the landlady was intrusive and overbearing throughout the tenancy. She has failed to respond adequately to major issues like unreliable electricity and a missing shower. Finally, she has attempted to make illegal and bewildering deductions from my Deposit, which I have had to formally dispute with the tenancy deposit scheme.