College and County

I have had a great experience using College and County for our rental in Oxford. Our property manager Ewelina was helpful, attentive and prompt with communication and queries at all times. Our tenancy and check out was a seamless experience, with all terms actioned from the original lease agreement. I would use College and County in the future.

My name is Bernardo. I had applied for a tenancy in Oxford. Ed Taylor was my point of contact. I was told the application process would take 1-2 weeks. No move in date was confirmed. When the application was complete I was told the contract would start two days later, I explained I could not move in until a week later. They came back to me saying that was my problem, that I had a agreed that date (which I never did) and would have to pay a week of rent without moving in until the following date. They made it very clear that they would defend the landlord’s opinion and not mine as the customer, not taking my opinion or situation in consideration. That is even offering to pay 6 months in advance. Very poor communication and always siding with the landlord and not the customer. If that is how they are acting before I pay or sign anything imagine once I have signed the contract! Really would not recommend and ended up signing for another property with obviously another agency. Absolute waste of time!!!

Probably one of the worst agencies in Oxford. Even though the house was completely new, the first night I moved, I had a huge leak (from the shower upstairs) on my whole wardrobe and they didn't refund me anything (despite the fact lots of my stuff was damaged!). In addition, once the tenancy finished, they gave back part of my deposit to one of my ex-flatmate WITHOUT MY AUTHORISATION. Even if I previously informed the agency that girl had problems with the management of money, mental illness (with written evidence!) and I specified that I wanted that MY MONEY was returned to me and NOT TO UNKNOWN PEOPLE (as it is logical), they ignored me. Obviously, this girl disappeared with the entire deposit. So now, thanks to College and County, I lost a considerable amount of money. So, if you are dealing with this agency, please stay away from it, especially if you care about your money.

My mother and I were desperately looking for a property at the height of student move-in season (October), and found that the Oxford market was very competitive. This meant that most agencies were terrible at returning calls, keeping up communication, and were generally quite rude at time. College & County helped us find a new home and kept us up-to-date of the process throughout. They were sensitive to our needs and were understanding when some paperwork took longer no our side. 4 and not 5 stars, as the maintenance team has at time been slow to respond.

I lived in a rental in Oxford which was run by C&C, and they were just a total shower. We had a leaking tap at one point, dripping out litres and litres of water overnight and while we were away in work. We used it as best we could for kettles, coffee machines etc but it was just too much. Their ‘advice’ was to ‘water the plants’. Another occasion, we had a faulty light fitting and asked if it could be repaired. On the light fitting there were three separate switches, operating three separate lights in the kitchen. The ‘repair’ involved changing this to a two switch light fitting, meaning that one switch operated two lights. Then not only that but the workman left a mess behind where the dust had fallen from the wall. Just complete laziness and incompetence. The worst by far was an email direct from a C&C employee telling us we had been paying low rent for a few months, and they had rallied up how much the three of us tenants owed due to low payments. I knew I had never underpaid so I checked my bank statements, and I didn’t owe a single penny. My two housemates owed money but nowhere near the amount they claimed. I asked for an explanation on how they came to those figures and got nothing. I’d like to think this was just total incompetence rather than outright lying. I had a terrible experience with them. Incompetent, lazy, inaccurate. Just pathetic.