Letting agent reviews for Oakmans Estate Agents in Birmingham

Oakmans' contractors (probably in-house team) let themselves in to my house in my absence to inspect my washing machine explicitly against my two (unanswered) requests in writing that I should be there. I sensed it would happen from the silence and it did. Then Oakmans made an excuse of "unexpected sickness" which didn't make sense. I changed my front door lock and asked landlord to change letting agent. He didn't. In the end, Oakmans gave me two days' notice that they would change my lock forcibly from the outside - without a court order. I then got legal advice that this was harassment/breach of quiet enjoyment They then backed down. In over a month, they have not picked up the phone to me once to try to work things through by phone. Constant fob-offs and disrespect in emails. They just don't get it. There's a culture of disrespecting tenants that goes right to the top and will be hard to change. They probably face down tenants all the time and usually win but I was absolutely determined that they wouldn't f*** me over and they haven't.

Would take a while to get back to emails, would pass the issue onto the landlord who would pass it onto contractors (allegedly) who then wouldn’t turn up despite us being promised they would. Then would close the issue before it being resolved so we would have to keep reporting and they acted oblivious saying they thought it had been fixed, despite no one ever saying it had. Never did the health and safety inspections they said they would so we were left without a fire escapes route due to all the dangerous rubble and huge hole left in the backgarden by the landlord and his builders. They were rubbish at chasing up the landlord even for major issues such as raw sewage leaking by the back door and up through peoples showers and sinks - very clearly a biohazard. Also maybe very little attempt to help or chase up the landlord when i moved in (to the all en-suite house) and the shower did not work due to bad plumbing, which carried on for a month until they finally fixed it after me begging again and again - not ideal when you’re living with people you don’t know well. Then upon moving out they assured me i wouldn’t be held liable or charged for the bathroom mirror that fell off while I was out due to it being glued on with hot glue, and they’re still trying to charge me for it, after all the other issues we’ve had. Rubbish communication and pathetic efforts made to give us decent living conditions that we payed for. Avoid them.

Takes ages to fix stuff such as no hot water, broken hob and broken front door. Did eventually fix stuff

Rated 5*s because if you word it right (i.e. be assertive and know your damn rights), they are quite good at responding to maintenances calls. They're also quite good at communication too, and their staff and workers are really friendly. Just do not let them pressure you into anything - you can take time to think about things if you need. There is no urgency like they will try to force you into thinking.

Just be aware, they will to get money out of you with a few sneaky things - take pictures before you leave the house! - but ESPECIALLY with the 'bills package'. Do your maths and make an informed choice (ask older students / your parents if you're going into second year!!), because those rates are absolute daylight robbery. Genuinely, their partner Housr will offer you a bills package that will charge YOU as an individual about 3-4x what you would pay as a HOUSE for your bills. Imagine that times the amount of people in your house - it is a straight up money-making scheme.

They're okay estate agents, but you gotta stand your ground. Genuinely, most student agents will try to take advantage of your inexperience and your busy-ness and Oakman's unfortunately falls into this category in some ways. All you gotta do is play the same game back - stand your ground, know your rights, and you will see that they are actually more busy than you and don't have the time nor the gall to fight you. It's much easier to get them under your thumb than you'd think (sounds bad but there is nothing wrong with it! Just be polite, professional, and a good tenant - assertively) and it'll save you a lot of stress.

Took ages to respond to maintenance issues and other queries. House was left in a state when we moved in, definitely not professionally cleaned and the oven was practically a biohazard. Had no hot water for about a month. Had no wifi for the first few months of tenancy as they forgot to sort it out. Kept receiving emails about viewings being booked all day every day but nobody actually showed up, when they did it was always very late notice. Took so long after the deadline to send us the house inventory form that everybody had moved home for summer, but still expected it to be completed within a few days

Was pretty good at the start of the year but got a lot worse as the year went on with responding to maintenance issues

Worst agency, email sent by then saying I woukd get high standard repairs, this is after I reported it to environmental health.

Don't believe anything they tell u and get advise from the pravite sector renting, students can use this service too.

They use your deposit for repairs thus why u dint get ur full deposit back.

Be aware

Viewings were very annoying, they would say that viewing could be from any time between 10am-6pm and sometimes no one even came, we had this going on for months. They rush you into signing for a house when you dont need to. Other than that they were pretty standard.

Oakmans out of hours number was often not picked up, sometimes they picked up on maintenance issues, sometimes they weren't picked up at all. They're not very good with giving you notice before just showing up to the property either.

They took a long time to reply to emails.