"Mixed experience but still a few aces"

I agree with previous reviewer that as with all estate agents, DandG have their share of young, inexperienced staff but there are still a few gems at Douglas and Gordon, who have the professionalism and experience of the older guard. Our initial agent Ed McCulloch in the Sloane Av branch was one, but he sadly left. Sophie Hayward at the South Kensington SW7 branch was extremely efficient, courteous and helpful to deal with throughout the sale of our property. She only came on board at the end of a long wait, and had it not been for her, I believe the property would not have yet sold. Much gratitude to her and highly recommended.

"Douglas and Gordon is now to be avoided…"

Douglas and Gordon is now to be avoided at all costs. The people they employ have no experience and are very young to have any. The old guard has long gone such a shame.

"Working with Renata to rent a house has…"

Working with Renata to rent a house has been amazing, she’s really helpful and is lovely to talk to! Would definitely recommend this agent and if you can request Renata!

"I've been dealing with D&G as a tenant…"

I've been dealing with D&G as a tenant for two years and every step of the way has been an absolute nightmare. They have made every little process difficult, gone back on their word, charged ridiculous extra fees whenever possible and caused miscommunications between us and the landlord. They are disorganized, rude, scheming and unhelpful. I would definitely not recommend.

"Terrible issues, lying estate agent and difficult tenancy"

3 pest infestations in a 1 year tenancy, pest control confirmed to me they were present before we moved in but the estate agent said there were no pest issues

Had to fight to get a sofa in the flat when it was offered furnished with a sofa

Numerous building issues, cracks, dirty walls, tiles falling off walls, an unsealed bath, some windows wouldn't open

The only silver linings were our Property Manager himself was very helpful in sorting out these many issues. Apart from that, everyone I dealt with at D&G was rude and dismissive.

One to avoid for sure, especially with so much competition from rival letting agencies.

"Never again"

...Unfortunately that’s my experience in a nutshell!

"DO NOT USE"

DO NOT USE. D&G are incompetent! Too many issues to list and the entire experience has been one I would like to forget.

"Great service by Orla"

Great service by Orla, who was open and supportive in showing us around flats and explaining the rental process to newly arrived Londoners.

The company itself is professional, but having signed up for the automated notices of available properties, it felt as though they were trying to upsell us, as their suggestions were consistently well above our stated price range.

"Or you could go with someone........good."

When thinking about an agent to let your property, one COULD choose to trust Douglas and Gordon..........
If you did decide to go with their Kensington Church St office, you may have your letting manager (let's just call her P) manage to get your long term reliable tenant completely off-side in the very first hours of having the property in her management! Astounding!!!
How you might ask?
1: Arrive at the property unannounced (now, wouldn't that be harassment under the 1988 housing act??)
2: Use a key to make entry past the security door (ignoring the fully functional buzzer to alert the tenant of arrival) then engage a lie to the tenants mother about the period of time you have been attempting to make contact to gain access (The lie: "I have been trying to make contact all day yesterday and today" - The truth, a single email a couple of hours prior to entering)
3: Enter the property under this false statement on the permission of an elderly woman who was not the leaseholder.
4: Deny the content of the conversation to the tenant that took place between the agent and his mother to gain access. By doing so, implying that both the tenants elderly mother and friend who also witnessed the conversation were both liars.
4: Contradict her words with her actions by stating 'I would never gain access without permission” after being inside the very same property - without permission.
5: When challenged on this, came up with the excuse "I was just testing the keys' - (the same keys that only seconds earlier were said of "I would never use without permission"

As a direct result of this agents actions, the tenant has now shut down all access to the property other than the absolute legal minimum. This now means that the flat will probably go un-leased for weeks after the tenancy, costing the landlord upwards of 5k in lost rent.
Baffling to watch an agent crash and burn quite so quickly when all it would have taken to recover was a unreserved, unqualified apology.
The lack of emotional intelligence just astounding.
So yes, you COULD choose them....
Or you could go with someone who is... Oh I don't know... Capable? Principled? Honest? Truthful? Good?

"We rented a property through d&g"

We rented a property through d&g -
I would avoid for the following reasons:

1. I think the trust was broken from the beginning. They held back information about an ongoing legal claim due to the structure of the property being affected by the neighbouring building, which meant we could have been asked to leave the property at a short time had a settlement been reached. We were only informed about this after we paid our deposit and it was too late to back out without losing money despite asking the agent if they knew why previous offers have fallen through and the place being on the market for a while.
2. During our tenancy agreement we had mentioned to the agent that we wanted the sofa and coffee table removed from the property as we already had our own. She said that the landlady would be fine with that. It turned out that once again we had been misled to believe that so that the agent would seal the deal.
3.During our time there we had a number of people managing the property because people kept leaving. It was difficult to contact them and I remember at the beginning they took ages sorting out things so they clearly do not push for the tenants’ rights. (i.e. we had to live without a bedroom door for 3 months)
4. One of the agents passed on our contact details to third parties, i.e. surveyors that the landlady wanted to come and visit the property without our consent so we kept receiving calls from surveyors and mortgage brokers to arrange time to come visit our property.
5. when we said we wanted to leave a number of the agents were trying to arrange viewings without giving 24 hour warnings.
6. Finally the landlady did not want any money deducted from our deposit but when we received our deposit we found out that 7% of the 6 week deposit had been deducted by D&G without our consent or any prior detail given. We consider that Natasha from Douglas and Gordon had ample opportunity to bring this up in the various emails exchanged and this was a hidden fee.