20th Jan 2026 (8 weeks ago)
A wholly unpleasant experience having to deal with Whites as tenants in a rental property. It didn't help that they were also trying to sell the property on behalf of the landlord so were always acting in their interests, and never in ours.
We were good, professional tenants that never missed a payment, caused no trouble in 7 years and for the last 18 months had to contend with pigeons living in the roof. The noise and upset this caused us during our son's GCSE exam year was unbearable - not to mention a health hazard (confirmed by a pest controller). Because the landlord was selling the property and we were fed up with the pigeon situation we found another property to live in before we were given notice to leave. This didn't seem to please the landlord or Whites to the degree that despite thoroughly cleaning the property professionally and spending hundreds of pounds in the process, we were offered around £100 of our deposit back and this was after 2 months of chasing it after we moved out. It was claimed we did not clean the carpets, despite the landlord being at the property at the time and meeting the carpet cleaner at the time. (She subsequently phoned him up and verbally abused him but that's another story).
The stress this caused us was horrendous. Presumably a ploy to milk us for all we were worth we eventually decided to hold out and supply evidence to the company that were holding the deposit and eventually got over 50% back just after Christmas - 4 months after we had moved out.
Not once in any correspondance with my wife did Whites refer to her by her name (either a professional tactic to try and undermine and intimidate or just unbelievably rude), not once did they ever acknowledge making a mistake (such as not forwarding the landlord the cleaning receipts until 3 months later, not including attachments in emails and blaming us for not receiving them, not chasing up things at the landlord's end but pressuring us at our end). Judging by the comments by other aggrieved tenants they aren't likely to here either, just ignore the facts, never apologise and apportion blame elsewhere without taking any responsibility for their actions. It's not in their interests to admit any of this in their reply, so they won't.
Reading other reviews I note that some tenants have had a similar unpleasant experience, but unlike them we weren't going to be bullied into just accepting an unfair amount of deposit back. My wife was even advised by Whites that she did not have to be present at the check out viewing which cost us a larger part of the deposit because we were unable to challenge any of the findings. "No evidence of carpet cleaning" was one of the findings which was an outright LIE that both the landlord AND Whites knew was false. "Perhaps you should contact the carpet cleaner to ask why it wasn't cleaned" I didn't have to because I was there.
It was never in Whites' interest to be fair to us as they were not only being paid by the landlord to manage the property but as they were also selling it would've wanted to keep the landlord as happy as possible so they could gain their commission from the sale.
So if you're a tenant (funnily enough not any positive reviews from them) I would avoid.
Life isn't about how much you commission you may earn, or whether you own a house - treat people better. This process was not handled fairly at all - and you know that. We treated you with courtesy and kindness with every house viewing and property valuation you organised as well as every time you came to take photos of the property and yet the way you made my wife feel throughout this protracted process was awful.... Read more