Portico Property - Leyton Reviews 44

Who sells a house and the agent doesn’t even communicate?

A one year ordeal, where the agent showed a cheaper flat to the oriiginal purchaser after the first offer had been accepted. Only for it to fall through 4 months later.

Second round and not much better - it sold but after paying £5k in fres not even a notification that the sale was complete or a thank you.

Utterly incompetent agents, awful comms, and generally a third rate organisation.

Avoid.

Abbie, Deniz, Jack went over and beyond what I expected. Very impressed with their professionalism and customer service. As well as that, a very friendly team of people and I wish to thank you all for the excellent service and attention you provided us.

Thank you so much Abbie for all your help and advise I have been dealing with a lady at this branch in Leyton she has made this so easy and helped me all the way through

Portico are an absolute disaster, both as a tenant and a landlord. Under no circumstances should you go anywhere near Portico.

I was a tenant in a property that was managed by Portico on behalf of the landlord for 7 years. During that time, through neglect, they caused thousands of pounds of damage to the property that I was renting. I notified them of a ceiling leak in the bathroom and it took over three years to repair; what started as a small, occasional drip turned into an essentially open conduit, riddled with black mould, every time it rained. Other works, major and minor, were either botched or simply ignored. IF YOU ARE A LANDLORD and want a property manager who will take care of your asset, steer clear. Portico will literally allow your property to rot without lifting a finger.

It was after the tenancy that they revealed themselves, however. I've been renting properties in London since the late 90s; I remember the bad old days, when landlords treated deposits as bonus rent and estate agents tried everything they could to scam customers out of every cent. I thought the bad old days were receding, but no; they're still here at Portico. Portico did not cancel the direct debit for my rent, and collected three extra months of rent after I had moved out. When challenged on this, they returned some of it. The rest of it I had to fight tooth and nail for. Over the course of conversations with three different Portico employees (Jack Wackett, Abbie Smith, and Uwais Malik, all in the Leyton branch) they came up with escalatingly absurd reasons why they couldn't return it, including:

* I had been the tenant of the property for the month after I had moved out, and they needed to withhold money for that
* They accidentally sent the money to the landlord and needed to get it back from her before they could return it to me
* They wanted to withhold it to cover cleaning costs (this was after I had already taken them through TDS to get my deposit back)

In the end, I had to take them through small claims court; days after I filed they mysteriously found the money and sent it back to me. It is my belief that they never would have done had I not started a legal proceeding.

Look: I'm not new, I know how estate agents in London work. You're never going to get one that spares no cost to give good service or proactively steps up to manage issues in advance. Best case scenario they leave you alone. Worst case scenario they let your property rot around you and then steal from you at the end of the tenancy. Portico are the worst case scenario. It doesn't matter how nice the property they show you is, or how competitive their managed service rates are. Run, don't walk.

Thank you to Jack and Daniela.
They're helpful and reply quickly to emails.
Chris.

Whole sales team - Tommy, Julia and Daniel - extremely professional, friendly and helpful. They know the local market and had a number of potential buyers on their books ready to view my property. As I no longer live in the area (Leyton) they did a fantastic job in handling every aspect of the sale of my house and keeping me informed every step of the way. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.

It was lovely getting to know Daniel and he was always on hand to answer queries and chase things up from other buyers in our chain. He kept us informed at all times and helped keep our sale on track.

Tommy and Daniel from the Leyton branch have been fantastic. Both are very personable, come across as really caring and are a credit to Portico. They also negotiated a sale for me in a short timeframe so big thanks to them both.
(Taylor Rose on the other hand are awful and incompetent)

The guys at the branch - Spencer, Daniel and Tommy - were all excellent from start to finish. Great communication and super helpful. Thank you!

My experience over 2 years renting through Portico was a nightmare and I would strongly discourage any potential tenant from using either Portico or their Leaders/Roman/Portico group.

Throughout this period, Portico let us down and behaved unprofessionally for the following reasons:
1. Unreasonably refusing to add my flatmate to the tenancy agreement, despite us paying them £50 for this and providing a valid guarantor
2. Being most of the time unreachable on the phone
3. Forcing us into an NDO deposit scheme, which is arguably a scam
4. Being unresponsive to serious maintenance issues, such as mould and missing control knobs on the heaters
5. Not enabling us to be present for the check-out inventory
6. Forcing us into paying for professional cleaning at end of tenancy, where we left the flat in an equivalent cleaning condition as compared to check-in, all this under the threat of a costly adjudication and debt recovery procedure

Tommy at the Leyton branch is excellent, responsive and goes above and beyond. Within 48 hours my property was photographed to perfection and marketed.

I would give 0 if I could I have never had a successful interaction with them for the last four years of renting. Incompetent and it takes months to get a response despite calling and emailing multiple members of the team. Honestly do not know how they could have any 5 star reviews.

The Portico sales team in Leyton were great to deal with. They were always very responsive, friendly and kept me updated on the results of viewings. They also brought through a good number of viewings (almost three times as many as Bairstow Eves!). Would recommend if you are thinking of selling your house.

I met with Billy Crickmar from the Leyton branch initially and he said all the right things to get the property under portico however since then i've had a god-awful service. Portico found a tenant who is now subletting my property! and after weeks of asking Portico to inspect the property where they dismissed my concerns, they finally went and my fears were confirmed.

It is impossible to get hold of anyone at any of the branches- via email or phone. I have been left for weeks with no response which i think is unacceptable considering i am paying for the Premium Landlord service. After multiple calls i finally got Billy to give me call back and he finally admitted there was a poor level of customer service and he promised to get back to me regarding dropping my management fees- this was in May and I'm still yet to hear back from him regarding this and its now August.

I complained and my case was passed to Omar Ally who is based in the Stratford branch. He again has dodged inspections at the property and communication has been extremely poor.

Get your act together Portico!

My advice to anyone who is looking for an estate agent- go anywhere else but to Portico! Save your money and time. I've never liaised with such incompetent and careless individuals before, who have such disregard for you as a person and your investment! They are happy to ignore you as soon as you sign on the dotted line. Shame on you Billy and Omar- i don't know how you sleep at night.

Spencer, Tommy and Daniel in the Leyton did a wonderful job, always happy to help and very knowledgeable and able to give their wisdom. The Portico brand is clean, simple and stylish, so the for sale sign actually looks good when it's up outside your property. The website has a great user interface that's easy to use.
But one of the stand out features is how well shot the photography was. John the photographer was a professional who really knows how to shoot to bring the best out of your home.

I've been dealing with Portico Leyton for the last 6 months. These guys are top notch and very professional. In fact the whole team consistently over deliver which is such a pleasure to deal with. Tommy Taylor is absolutely brilliant and true to his word. Appoint this branch and you will not be disappointed.

My partner and I recently made what we believed to be a fair offer on a rental property. However, we were told that the 2 offers put forward to the landlord had been declined because both had opted for a standard deposit. Instead, we were told that the landlord would only be considering offers from those willing to join the zero deposit scheme as it would enable them to claim a cash incentive from the scheme (equivalent to 7 weeks rent) which they felt necessary to cover expenses incurred as a result of a previous bad tenant. This may seem like our gripe is with the landlord not Portico but the agent we dealt with took no time to properly outline the benefits of the scheme, let alone provide a link where we could read further, beyond claiming that we could get "loads of discounts". Upon inspection of the Portico website, the only info available on the zero deposit scheme is in an old news item, while their Tenants Advice section actually emphasises the importance of deposit protection schemes. This felt exploitative, especially as zero deposit schemes are often designed to assist struggling renters, not benefit landlords or agents.

I caution others when dealing with Portico, especially regarding their stance on deposit schemes. Such practices undermine the fairness of the rental market and must be addressed to protect tenants' rights. Making this scheme mandatory for our offer to be considered raises legal concerns, as it may violate fair rental practices. Given the financial pressures and competitive nature of the current rental market it should be crucial to ensure fairness for all involved in the rental process.

As first time buyers, we would like to thank Portico Leyton for getting us into our new home. In particular Tommy and Kelsee were friendly, helpful and professional throughout the whole process.

Professional, organised and helpful.
I approached Portico after a disastrous experience with a different Leyton Letting agent. Billy from Portico, Leyton supported me through a complete renovation of the property, holding the keys to give work people access and ensuring the work was done to a high standard. They advertised the property, organised the viewings and vetted the prospective tenants. I was kept informed throughout. I recommend their service.

We were introduced to Alice Amaral and from that time onwards we can not fault her in how she has dealt with anything and everything that she has done for us. She is always very pleasant. Everything we have asked of her has been done extremely quickly and efficiently. If there are any problems she has sorted it out promptly.
We highly recommend her.