I have mixed opinions about using Maitland's, whilst they did sell my apartment and the sale did eventually go though it was a rough ride. The appraisal was carried out by Darren; he seemed very professional, upfront and honest about marketing our property, what we should expect from them and what price we could achieve. There was some confusion about the fee though as Darren explained the new paperwork they had been given was causing them difficulty and that they had a meeting at the office soon to sort this out. I had to email to clarify what the fee was before we appointed them as it wasn't clear from this visit – however this shouldn't be a problem now if the paperwork was sorted. We agreed to market our property at a guide price of £115,000-£120,000 to achieve £117,500 as we explained to Darren that this was the lowest we could take, however when the local property paper came out the asking price was shown at £115,000 therefore we had offers below that amount so we had to refuse. I had a friend call the agent to enquire about my property to see what price they were quoting over the phone and they told the asking price was £115,000. I called Darren to express my concern about the property paper and he whilst he admitted it was a mistake they did say that customers where being told the correct price when they phoned up. He was Cleary surprised when I challenged that when I said my friend was quoted £115,000 just minutes before. Darren said to solve this he would email everyone in the office to clarify the correct price – however the local property paper that this was advertised in had a 2 week shelf life and I feel this negatively impacted us as buyers were told it's more expensive than advertised when they were called up. Maitland's did run the advert again for the following 2 weeks but this could have also given the impression the property wasn't selling or there was no interest. The incorrect price was also shown on the internet but this was updated straight away. We did request a for sale board for our property but it took a number of requests for us to get this put up and a number of weeks. On the first time it seems we were overlooked so Darren put in a 2nd request however the board company left a note with the agent saying they couldn't erect one as the management company do not allow it, Darren said a window board should have been left but is hadn't. Finally a board did turn up for us to erect in our window. “When I expressed concern to Darren whilst this was taking so long he came across quite defensive saying “he didn't think a board in an apartment in our area in a cul-de-sac would make any difference” I disputed this as when we were looking for a property to buy we drove around this area and found this apartment because there was a board up. The property details where professionally produced and were printed in full colour and showed our property in a positive light. The contract we signed explains we would be given a log in for their website to check marketing progress but we never got this so can assume this doesn't exist or we were overlooked. After the price was corrected things suddenly went quiet and there was very little interest therefore I called to express my concern that I felt the wrong price being advertised and the fact that it looked like we put the price up could have disadvantaged us and that I felt we should move to a different agent to give it a fresh approach and to an agent with a cheaper fee so I could drop the price a little back towards the original wrongly advertised price. I was quite surprised that I was greeted with some extreme defence from Darren and the conversation for me became a little heated and uncomfortable. Rather than dressing my concerns and explaining what Maitland's could do to sort it I was given stories about how worse my experience could be elsewhere if I went to a different agent. In the end I agreed to continue with Maitland's as they offered as a good will gesture to upgrade my listing on right move to a premium listing for no extra cost and move the photographs around to make it look “fresh”. I explained to Darren during this call that I found him extremely defensive and he replied to say he was like that because he knows they are the best agent. Viewings on the property where always accompanied by an agent and we were always given plenty of notice of a viewing taken place and feedback was always provided after each viewing. At one point we had an offer for £115,000 from a lady buyer however we were in a position where we couldn't drop to that price and she wasn't able to increase. A few days after we declined the offer we had a call from Paul one of the Directors of the company – he called us to “update” us but it was clear from the outset he was calling to talk us into the sale at £115,000. During this conversation he said prices are dropping a little and surveyors are down valuing properties like ours so we really should accept the £115,000 offer. Part of his process to convince us was a request from Paul for us to change our solicitors to their recommended solicitor who is based above their office. He said he would ensure the solicitor would price match our cheaper solicitor who we already instructed and that he would give us the £100 commission they would get from this solicitor to reimburse us for the costs we paid out to our current solicitor. He also said with their solicitor we would have a quick sale of about 6 weeks. Paul was aware I was offered “cheap” temporary accommodation through my work (as we were buying a new build) and he advised me that in the long run with a quick sale we would save and that I should take that option straight away, especially as prices are dropping. We considered this overnight and in the end decided to proceed. When we advised Paul that we would be happy with this he said he would need to speak to the buyer to see if she was still interested, although Paul had given me the impression that the buyer had asked the agent to call us to re-consider her offer it became apparent to me he was about to call her to convince her to proceed too. The buyer agreed after a few days so I entered into a tenancy agreement on the temporary accommodation as others were interested in it and I had to be able to secure that to proceed as it was so cheap, and paying for a mortgage and the rent for 6 weeks was just manageable. Shortly after their solicitors firm called us to start proceedings, however they knew nothing about the price match and the commission offer from Paul, when I explained that I would only proceed with them based on that, I was told a price match was fine but the £100 I would have to take up with Paul. I emailed him to confirm this arrangement as at that time I had nothing in writing. He didn't respond. Just under 2 weeks after I had a call from the solicitor to advise the buyer had pulled out. Maitland's called to confirm this shortly after and said they would contact the buyer to find out why and that they would call me back to let me know what had happened, this was the last I had heard on this. I then spoke to Darren to say we would be instructing a cheaper agent based on Pauls comments that prices were going down and property's like ours are being down-valued. Strangely this didn't seem to be an issue anymore. Darren explained he was confident that we would still get £117,500. In the end I re-negotiated the fee with him, if we sold over £115,000 the fee would remain the same but the cheaper agent fee would be price matched if we sold for under £115,000 – as we had to sell asap to re-secure the property we now wanted to buy. A buyer was once again found and we agreed a price of £116,000 including some furniture, as this buyer was buy-to-let it should be a quick sale. This was ideal for us as we had already signed a tenancy agreement for temporary accommodation based on the previous buyer as outlined above. For quite some time everything went quiet, we had 2 updates from Maitland's to say everything was moving along fine but there never seemed to be an informative update. One update from Emily was asking us to drop documents in for the solicitor, which we had already done a few days before to Emily! On the 28th September we had a message from Paul to say that everything seemed to be in place and that we would be exchanging contracts next week. I was delighted about this as this was abot the time he promised a no-chain transaction would take. When I spoke to my Solicitor about this she said we were miles off exchanging, I emailed Paul about his comment of exchanging next week and I heard back from Darren who confirmed a full update and apologised that I was misled and given wrong information. Our sale painfully dragged on and we finally exchanged and completed on 19th December (so Paul was only about 3 months out on his exchange date) The delays were mainly put down to the buyer being from out of the country and because of issues he had obtaining a mortgage without having a UK address. I think Maitland's found this transaction quite challenging as well and there was a number of times where calls were not returned or where updates given which were inaccurate or made to seem like everything would happen in hope we would hold on as we had advised Maitland's we were considering renting the property out instead because everything was taking so long. We asked a few times for Maitland's to call Taylor Wimpey who we were buying off to ensure them things were proceeding and Emily agreed to do that immediately however Taylor Wimpey advised it never happened which they said made them feel uneasy about our sale, Maitland's disputed this when I challenged them about it. In the end we issued an ultimatum to say if the property hadn't exchanged and completed before the Tuesday we went away for Christmas we would be pulling out and renting it. It did take until the Friday after which Darren advised would be more likely. At this point I feel Darren did pull out all the stops and if it wasn't for him and the buyers solicitor I doubt the sale would have gone though as the solicitor recommended by Paul earlier I felt was very weak and showed little interest in driving the transaction forward. On completion Maitland's refused to take payment directly from us despite Paul agreeing to that earlier therefore we had to pay their fee via our solicitor who charged £25 for doing that. When I spoke to Darren about this he agreed to my request to refund the £25 as he wasn't aware of this arrangement. At this time I also raised the £100 Paul promised me for using their solicitors, Darren said he knew nothing about this too but did look into it and arranged for £125 to be credited to my account. To conclude Maitland's does have its ups and downs like all companies and a number of reviews do show them in a positive light, however I feel I instructed a premium agent , paid a premium fee but often had a budget service. Overall I feel there was more negative than positive.