Derrick Charlesworth in Canterbury

Derek was truly unbearable. Our first contact was when I was locked out of my room (we had a keypad with a code but the code was wrong) there was no rush on dereks end to resolve it - I can’t stress enough that I literally couldn’t get into my room. He sent his ‘handy man’ - also incredibly rude and said I was looked out of my room because I was female and from Essex. He did not fix the door properly and the next day I was locked out AGAIN. We had a problem with mice - not to do with us as we did not keep food in the cupboards. Again, no rush on dereks end. It took a tenants parent who works for the NHS sending him a document about the risks of mice for him to send someone in. The fence fell down when the weather was extremely bad, and nothing was done about this at any point. Someone could have literally walked into our garden.
Getting our deposit back was hell. The agent originally proposed many things that needed fixing which were faulty before we moved in. They claimed we hadn’t cleaned (despite the invoice from the cleaner) and tried to get money for pretty much everything. Luckily we had lots of evidence (please remember to take pictures when you first move in of any problems!) and only paid for the things that we had done e.g chipped paint from having pictures up.
Derek was unkind, sexist, lazy and rude. We are extremely happy that we only decided to stay for one year. I would not recommend his service to anyone.

Landlord was proactive at first in fixing an issue with the boiler, was only a minor problem that could be talked through over the phone. Was slow to fix a broken bathroom light switch (which required an electrician) and washing machine (which we had reported proactively due to it starting to go wrong). As tenants we were very cooperative when people on the Landlord's behalf needed access to the property to retrieve items stored in the shed and when a surveyor needed access. Our sour end came when despite leaving the property in as clean condition as we could ourselves (including receiving an overall "professional clean except domestically clean in Kitchen & Bathroom" on our checkout report from the agency) and having had the house once-overed by the person the Landlord uses to correct damage or issues in the house after tenancy (saying it was also looking professionally clean) we were surprised by a £370 deduction from our deposit for cleaning & garden work including a "whole house clean" for items which weren't listed on our checkout report and £100 to do around 20 minutes of garden work due to "slightly long grass". After much back and forth and being treated in a very condescending manner by the landlord in his e-mail when reasonably trying to reach a compromise on the deduction (bold text shouting TENANTS RESPONSIBILITY is not professional) we were able to negotiate a £300 deduction from our deposit (£75 each) for the grass to be cut again (despite doing this ourselves using tools the landlord provided) and for the bathroom and kitchen to be cleaned. As I mentioned before, this was our 3rd tenancy, we were 4th year students and have had good track records from past landlords, we treated the property with respect and tried our upmost to return it in the state in which it was handed over to us, to be treated like we had trashed the place or shown no respect despite polite and well worded communications from us at the end is what has soured the end of what would've been a good tenancy. By far the worst exchange we've had to deal with over 3 privately rented properties.