HelpHound

I have just finished renting with Parklane (July 08) and I cannot believe some of the reports on here? I admit that occasionally they were a little slow to fix the problems I had but when I had a serious issue they were fantastic! When I moved in the house wasn't clean but that probably shows the laziness of the previous tenants rather than parklanes surely?

I reported that the house needed a clean and the cleaners (think it was a company called LEX Clean??) sent two guys over and sorted in a few days. It wasn't a hassle for me but I can appreciate it when a place isn't clean when you move in.

Over the 12 months I think I had about 2 or 3 issues with appliances (Washing machine mainly) but they were fixed within a fair time frame.

My advice is if you want everything doing straight away then don't sign up with a company that has so many properties. I was happy with their service and the staff seemed friendly and took the time to help as much as they could.

I have lived in one of Parklane's houses for several years and have always found the staff extremely pleasant, polite and helpful. Any maintenance issues have been dealt with quickly and with little or no fuss. I would definitely recommend Parklane for short or long term lets. Parklane offer excellent accommodation and value for money.

We moved out of a Parklane house this July. I got to say that i heard about their 'reputation' but we never got any problems with them. we had a few bits of maintenance and they dealt weith everything pretty ok. the house was good, the location great and was what we expected - we saw the house twice before we signed up (whcih is not a bad idea, 'cos you forget when you are looking at loads of houses) I think becasue Parklane are one of the biggest they get that much more flak - they have a big choice of proeprties- we got a 6 bed in Headingley near the pubs and shops which are great.
I have lived in Leeds for 3 years and the first 2 years i did have problems with other landlords/jhouses. WE had to get out of our contract for a Pads proeprty last year because it was a building site when we came to Leeds with car full of gear! Dont even go there! We then looked at what else was availabel and the experience was so differnet between differnt agents. SOme wouldnt give you the time of day unless all 6 of you were around to view the house - how cna oyu get all of you gathered together in one go for every house oyu want to see? we lived in a Deu Estates house first and that was the pits. they didnt sort out our damp problem and we just stuck it out like idiots. we held back on our rents but they kept on harassing us for it and threatened legal action and chraged us loads of admin fees. best advice i can give oyu is find which area you want to live in, then to look at as many agents as you can who have property there. when you find a property you like, give it a full inspection. Dont be shy to ask questions and you'll find someithg that you like. i just cashed in my deposit which Parklane sent back in full which is brilliant 'cos we expected them to knock off something for cleaning. good luck.

I officially hate this company. The properties they rent are way overpriced and there deposists are rediculous. If you have a problem with you house you have to ring them so many times until they do something and then they still dont come when they do. I had to resort to my dad ringing them about a leak in our house and suprise suprise they came round straight away after a week of me constantly asking them to come round. They leave there houses quite dirty aswell. Do not reccommend and the staff are useless

BOO HISS! Parklane are THE worst property company in Leeds bar none! Only at parklane can you get unfriendly service, a terrible property and even shoddier reactions to requests you make! Reasonable reuqests like fire alarms were ignored to the last minute and we were given nothing but grief whilst we bugged them for this rather important safety matter. The staff are desperately unfriendly, the properties are filthy and they took years to give us back our deposits. Absolutely AWFUL.

I'm afraid to say that ParkLane were pretty awful as Estate Agents go - don't be swayed by their impressive Headingly office - it may look professional, but behind the scenes ParkLane is disorderly, poorly organised and provide bad customer service. You can never speak to the manager, who is never in the office. We had numerous issues with our flat - leaks, broken oven, broken shower, and it was very dirty on arrival. However, problems took so long to resolve and much time was spent writing letters of complaint. If possible, go for a smaller estate agent or a private landlord - at least then you're dealing with only one person. I wouldn't recommend parklane to anyone. The only plus was that we did get our deposits back in full - although it took at least 3 months.

Possibly the worst estate agents in Leeds - they never fix things, you don't get your deposit back, the state of the houses are poor and never clean when you move in. It's not like they charge good prices either, the majority of the houses all rent at approx £63/week... If I could give you any advice when signing for a student house it would be to go for an independent landlord

As the first of my housemates to arrive at our flat at the beginning of our tennancy I was horrified by the state at which it had been left. There were several bits of furniture that hadnt been removed yet, various patches of mould and damp all around including in the kitchen, dirt and grime everywhere but most noticable in the kitchen and bathroom. On ringing ParkLane naively thinking they had perhaps simply overlooked the cleaning and were getting round to it in the coming days, i was told that it had been cleaned (HA!) and there was nothing they could do! My poor mother and I then spent 2 full days making the house respectable and suitable for humans to live in - definately not a good start. Perhaps its gets better? Well, NO! Since then we have had....
a dangerously rocking oven,
holes through the floor in the kitchen down to the plaserboard of the flat below's ceiling (hygenic,no),
the mould and damp continued to creep around the walls and ceilings,
no carbon monoxide detector (only put in after complaints and flatmates serious illness),
terrible insulation,
boiler breaking,
constant radiator problems (at one point had the maintance out almost daily..they were useless - even at just bleeding a radiator!)
large hole in roof (for 18months) we complained as soon as water was actually driping through and then constantly for about 14 months before a plumber (!) not a roofer was sent to fix it! We then waited another 4 months for the roofers to be sent - turned out 6 large roof tiles were missing and the water damage was extensive.
The quality of the matresses gave half the people living there back problems!
They decided to 'redecorate' the hallway... but left us for a year with partly stripped wall paper to look at.
Rats in the garden and mice in the basement flat! eek!

We ended up getting a lot of work done to the flat which improved it greatly but only after personal contacts made phone calls to the right people. We wouldnt have had a hope of getting anything done as merely 6 students! The work they did was ok but is not going to last the test of time.
The parklane staff are only in it for the money not for helping the tennants remotely. DO NOT SIGN WITH PARKLANE.... also be careful about Rent Inc, it is owned by and has the same staff as Parklane properties. (seems they even have to make up new company names their reputation is so bad- you have been warned)

Signing up to a property with parklane properties was one of the biggest mistakes i made. I have been very disappointed with there lack of help and service whilst living in the property. The flat was in a disgusting state on our arrival with the water and heating not working and it had obviously not been checked or eveb looked at since the last tenants had been there. This was then followed by numerous other problems which we discovered a few weeks after moving in. Despite numerous phone calls and letters to praklane nothing was done about the problems until months after we moved in and we had had a meeting with the landlord and even then there were still outstanding issues. I would never recommend anybody to sign up for a property with parklane!

I must admit, my only experience in recent years of the lettings market has been when assisting my two children with arranging accommodation at their respective universities, neither of which were Leeds. However, we take a keen interest in the reviews at HelpHound and often carry out further research to make sure that individual businesses are not getting an unjustified hammering from their customers and also that the review system is working as intended. In view of this, I took the trouble to search for additional references to this lettings agent and discovered a forum thread from August to November 2006 at thestudentroom.co.uk (see separate review). On reading the messages that had been posted, I was horrified by some of the stories, which included failing to arrange repairs, the withholding of bonds and docking £25 each for a broken bathroom light cord! Now thats an expensive piece of string! So there is clearly no evidence to suggest that the reviews are being unfair. In fact, one forum member suggested that there should be a website where people can warn other students about their experiences with landlords. Somewhere like HelpHound perhaps! So keep posting the reviews and ensure that other members can make informed choices!