Having just read the thread on Blundells, I thought it would be interesting to see what people think of Saxton Mee? Has anyone ever purchased or sold property through them?

PS. Please don't post links to online property sellers or recommend other agents - that's not the point of this thread.

They don't disclose bid amounts below the asking price, this means a property can go to final offers without you knowing what any of the other offers are - not how things should work in my book!!!

Doesn't everyone do this though?!

I hear they sign you up to a sole selling contract, which is the worst of all?

Originally posted by Geoff
Doesn't everyone do this though?!


They all seem to do from my experience in the property ordeal of buying and selling in Sheffield. We sold via Blundells and bought from Saxton Mees and overall found Saxton Mees to easier to deal with. Blundells never returned phone calls etc. Which is only a minor thing but frustrating.

Originally posted by Geoff
Doesn't everyone do this though?!!

No, I have seen houses with Haybrooks, Blundells, Reids Rains and always known the highest bid amount before viewing the property and they have always been below the asking price.

At first the estate agents will usually tell you the highest bid when you first see the house but if there is a lot of interest they will ask you to put in your best offer by a certain time and they will not tell you how much everyone else had offered. The vendor then takes his pick of the offers and that person wins!!

This has happened to me every time I've put an offer in on a house and I'm sick of it! We are now buying a new build mainly to avoid the farce of closed bids. Closed bids make everyone put in stupid offers just to try and ensure they get the house. The last bid we put in on a house was 10K over the asking price and we still didn't win!!

More annoyingly and quite stupidly nobody will tell you how much houses sell for so you don't really know how much you should be paying!

When I have the time to write the thread, I will tell you what I think about them !

Just take a look at their website.
They do not adhere to any Estate Agents Code Of Conduct.

I wouldn't even consider renting from Saxton Mee... They charge you nearly £9 to just look around a property! Absolute Cheek! :o

Originally posted by Caronp
I hear they sign you up to a sole selling contract, which is the worst of all?
I don't know, but I know from previous experience that Blundells require exclusivity. It appears that many estate agents are going back to this now the market is cooling.

....and its only going to get worse Geoff.

The home inspection pack will soon be upon us, and its likely many firms will put people in a sole selling contract, which is waterproof, with the incentive there will be no up front cost to pay for preparing the Home Information Pack, but then you are handcuffed to the selling agent.

I thought of something very interesting whilst typing this post.... if there was enough interest why couldn't there be a property show, say every week or every fortnight, where sellers take pictures and details of their property in, and its displayed for people to see, and sellers come in and ask the vendors directly about their property.

You have similar things happen with spanish property etc.

Might be one for Caron! :D

Originally posted by 1Man&hisBMW
....and its only going to get worse Geoff.

The home inspection pack will soon be upon us, and its likely many firms will put people in a sole selling contract, which is waterproof, with the incentive there will be no up front cost to pay for preparing the Home Information Pack, but then you are handcuffed to the selling agent.

I thought of something very interesting whilst typing this post.... if there was enough interest why couldn't there be a property show, say every week or every fortnight, where sellers take pictures and details of their property in, and its displayed for people to see, and sellers come in and ask the vendors directly about their property.

You have similar things happen with spanish property etc.

Might be one for Caron! :D

Great idea.Anything which allows people to take control of things themselves

Well,I have had experience of Saxton Mee.I do not like the staff very much at The Banner Cross Office.
I think that they can come over as arrogant.The way I want to be treated as a customer is with respect.After all if it wasnt for people like me,trying to buy houses(trying being the operative word), they would be out of jobs.
There is nothing more important than a customer so estate agents should pull out all the stops to provide a great service for both seller and buyer.You cant have one without the other after all.
I wonder what level of training staff who work in estate agents get.
Yes,some are experienced but it doesnt show in their attitude.
I think you get this a lot when dealing with agents living in the ares where they have to deal with the more assertive customers who live in the South West.It is though the staff have to be arrogant to deal with assertiveness.
My experience of trying to buy a house from them a few months ago is not a good one.They do not stand up to customers who , once they have agreed a sale in good faith want to open it up again.
If they adhere to the estate agents code of practice, they would not allow the customer to do that.
I know they act on behalf of them,but there should still be ground rules and Saxton Mee do not enforce thes.
I understand that they were previously big in the countryside ares and have now tried to take a slice of the market in Sheffield.
The trouble with that , I feel , is that you really do have to understand the Sheffield Public and understand how important it is that we get a good service.
We are sick and tired of paying money out to estate agents when they do not deserve their money.Please..Estate agents..send all your staff on customer care courses!

we just looked round a saxton mee property and didn't have to pay a penny (even for a second look round)

I think all of the agents are sneeky. When I bought my house the woman I bought it off told the agent she wanted a quick sale, no bidding up, she just wanted the asking price.

I put in the offer of the asking price with the agent and told them to call the woman before the weekend. I went around and told the vendor I had put in the offer at the asking price. A week later the agents called the woman to arrange 2 more showings and only told the woman about our offer when she quizzed them on it and said 'Ive already sold it havent I?' That was Haybrooks.

I also experienced agents calling around to up bids after allegedly 'closed' bids.

Just a tip - when you have put an offer in and want to find out what other offers are in or whether you are the highest bidder, call as a new enquiry or get someone else to call. It is also a good idea to ask how many bidders there are in the running and not just how many bids have been placed.

We bought a new property off-plan from Saxton Mee last year and found them incredibly lazy. They didn't return phone calls, ignored requests for information and generally didn't do a thing as far as we could tell. My partner & I frequently wondered what on earth they thought they did to deserve the amount of money we had to pay them. I know all estate agents are basically jumped-up middle men, but they really took the p***!

So in my opinion, a big fat thumbs down for Saxton Mee :mad:

On the up side though, would like to say that our developers (Westside Development) were an absolutely joy 99% of the time. Their aftersales care has really been something special. Any problems (not that there have been many, but all new properties have settling in issues don't they?) have been sorted promptly, often on the same day that we've reported them. And our home is wonderful :thumbsup:

Saxton Mee were the second agent we used to try and sell our flat.

They were useless when we bought the flat from them as they were responsible for viewings and didn't know the answers to any of our important questions!

With regards to selling, they are rubbish. I always asked what the situation was of people wanting to view i.e. were they a cash buyer? Invsestor? in a chain? as we ended up with a lot of time wasters around. They told me "we do not ask such questions at the viewing stage." So anyone could be viewing!

When we did have viewings they never chased people for feedback, we would have to call them 2 or 3 times before they made the effort to chase. Then would say "we have left several messages, but can't get hold of Mr....."

When we placed ads in the paper, they didn't follow our instructions, they put ads in in the wrong weeks.

We part-exchanged the flat and we had to get two other agents to value the flat, saxton mee were meant to send their valuation but the Bannercross Office could not be bothered to fax the valuation to the new home company because they knew they were losing their 1%.

They lied about sending it, i was actually on the phone with a girl there saying that a colleague was sending it as we spoke but when i checked she had lied! I phoned them 4 times and 4 times they said they had sent it and, again, when i checked with the new homes company they had not sent the report!!!

When we told Saxton Mee we were taking it off the market they suddenly came up with someone wanting to view on the Sunday. We had a call from Saxton Mee on the Monday saying the people who viewed wanted to make an offer!!! We told them too late as we had sold it through part-exchange!

I would not use Saxton Mee again or Halifax at Bannercross!

We bought our house through Saxton Mee & sold through Blundells. No other reason than the type of house we were buying & selling. Blundells seemed the right choice for a Hunters bar Terrace & Saxton mee had a better range of South West Semi Detached.

I suppose I would grudgingly consider Saxton Mee OK, but that was because Blundells were a little uninterested in us & didn;t seem to work for their money.

Myself and a friend have just finished renting a house through Saxton Mee and I have to say that I was relieved to be moving out!

Their idea of customer service was apalling! I can certainly say that I would have been sacked from my job if I ever spoke to my clients the way they spoke to me! I had to constantly chase them in order to get anything done. They had no sense of urgency even when things like our shower broke (which took them over a month and a half to fix).


They may be different to deal with when buying/selling a property but judging by my experience of their customer service I seriously doubt it and would not recommend dealing with them!

We've just got back from a viewing on a rental property that I arranged over a week ago. After waiting for over 20 minutes (in the rain!) without the estate agent showing up, I eventually got through to somebody who told me that the house had been let a few days ago, and that somebody was supposed to have phoned me to let me know! Not exactly impressive customer service - I'm just glad that I hadn't travelled a long way!

I've also experienced very poor service from the ELR letting department - awful at returning calls, very rude etc.

I'm beginning to think that I'll never find a new place!

If anybody has had any good experiences with lettings companies (polite, helpful service without ridiculous 'admin' fees, please let me know!

rented a property off them - they are apalling in every way ... never get back to you and the staff are rude

My experience of dealing with Saxton Mee was, as appears to be the standard, an absolute farce.

The staff are rude and inefficient but frankly, it doesn't surprise me considering the attitude of certain Directors within the company.

I was living in a house owned by one of the Directors, which I eventually offered to buy. Having accepted one offer, then pulling it, then coming back to me to re-offer the house up for sale again, i did eventually get the sale through. But not before this Director made the whole process as stressful as possible and added 5k to the price in the space of a month.

Following the purchase, I then had to take the Director to Small Claims Court in order to obtain an overpayment of rent which the Director refused to reimburse. Unsurprisingly, I did win and got my money and costs back.

Saxton Mee need bringing down a peg or two. They are thoroughly un-customer focussed and under-handed in the way they choose to do business. Whenever this discussion comes up with friends and colleagues, someone always has a horror story to tell in relation to Saxton Mee and often to do with a certain Director.

I wouldn't go near them again, and I would advise others not to.

The sad thing is, Saxton Mee don't give a toss what people think of them because they have the monopoly over Sheffield property. Their Directors are happy to tread all over people in order to make a fast buck so why should they care about someone getting their full bond back or being talked to politely over the 'phone.

I know if I logged onto this message board and found these comments being made about my business, I'd know i'd buggered up severly and would be putting things right. I don't think we can expect the same thing from Saxton Mee.

Thanks to Saxton mees failing to turn up for a valuation,we just got a new client in s10.

I recently moved to Sheffield, and needed to find somewhere to rent.

I booked a couple of places to view with Saxton Mee. Specific bad things:
(1) The agent was 45 minutes late to arrive (and then only after several increasingly stroppy phonecalls), even though there were three of us waiting outside to view it -- three different possible customers, who had made appointments.
(2) I had a frustrating phonecall the day after the viewing, because I wanted to rent one of the places. "You'll have to come to our office to collect the credit-check form." "I don't live in Sheffield. Can't you fax it to me?" "We don't do that." "Can't you post it to me?" "Umm, OK, but you'll have to return it in person, so that you can give us the cheque." "Can't I post it to you?" "I'm not sure that would be safe." etc etc.
(3) As far as I understand, they do not consider you for a place until they have done a credit-check on you. This costs a fair bit of money (several dozen quid -- I forget the details), and takes a fair bit of time.
Nice places to rent can be snapped up quite quickly. Therefore, the plan appears to be that you pay Saxton Mee for the credit check, and THEN (about 10 days later) find one of their places that you like. This is madness.
(4) Having promised to post me the credit-check form, they failed to. When I phoned to chase it up, it turned out that the flat had already been taken around the time that I had first asked for the form.

In contrast, I have nothing but good things to say about Bagshaws. I ended up renting via them. Specific good things:
(1) They do weekend viewings. (I didn't know this, but bumped into an agent on a Saturday, and he showed me round without an appointment.)
(2) They took the flat off the market when I put myself forward for it -- they also do a credit check, but were prepared to work on the assumption that I'd pass.
(3) They also charge for the check, but slightly less.
(4) They needed documents of proof of identity and proof of old address. I hadn't brought these along on the day [TOP TIP -- take your passport / driving licence / utility bills / etc.]. They came up with the idea that I could take them along to a different office near where I lived, so that someone there could witness some photocopies and forward them. Bagshaws are part of the Sequence chain, so there were several offices near me (Birmingham). Note: _they_ came up with this idea, not me. The office was open on a Saturday.
(5) On the day of moving house, I was badly mucked about by the removals firm. The result was that I couldn't collect the keys at midday, as agreed -- I arrived in Sheffield much later than expected. The agent _stayed_after_closing_hours_ to give me the keys (admittedly "only" 15 minutes). Without her doing that, I would have had a removals van full of furniture, and nowhere to unload it. The previous points were just basic customer service (though in contrast to Saxton Mee) -- this was star behaviour!

So, hurray for Bagshaws! [Insert smiley icon here if you need visuals with everything.] I have no links with them except that I'm renting one of their flats.

On the other hand, I went to view a flat with Bagshaws, and the agent conducting the viewing didn't know which flat it was, and didn't know which key it was. He couldn't answer any of my questions and told me to call the office.

Horses for courses I guess.

We found a house to rent in S10 through Saxton Mee 18 months ago. Initially they seemed to be quite helpful. Unfortunately the first impression turned out to be misleading.
We needed to move into the house quickly - this was two weeks before xmas day. We pushed Saxton Mee to get things done as fast as possible while the market was fairly quiet. They moaned (a lot) about this but to be fair did get credit checks and reference letters out so that we could move in the week before xmas.

We did have a lot of problems with them in putting together the contract for the lease though. Their contracts team tried to include clauses which wrote off our statutory rights as tennants - allowing the landlord access to the property at any time he wanted without notice and the like.

The contract had to be amended half a dozen times before they got it right. Each time they amended a section which needed to be changed and for some unfathomable reason altered a section which was absolutely fine to begin with as well!

Saxton Mee only did the tenant finding for the landlord and we have dealt direct with him since. We weren't charged to view the property and the credit check was done when we applied to be tenants, maybe they have changed their process since then?! When I went to pick up the keys the agent arrived late and didn't know his client's (the landlord) name.

All that said while we were looking to buy a house in S10 we found Saxton Mee staff to be really helpful and polite, much more so than Blundells - although they didn't match the little Archers Estates office in Crosspool who had great staff!

Archers are fantastic.....so far. I realise that all Estate Agents play the same game but I have never been so impressed with an agent's professionalism, efficiency and amenable manner. After appraisal I was not contacted at all. They have a policy to NOT telephone potential clients and instead give you a chance to make up your own mind and come to your own decision without pressuring you in to using their services. I accepted Archers as the agency to sell my house in S10 this week. The For Sale board was erected the following morning. The draft for proof-reading arrived just yesterday, and the advertisement will appear in NEXT weekend's property guide, yet today I have been advised that although advertising has not actually begun for this property they are already showing four families around my house today. I can not believe how quick it has been and how they have already generated the interest. I feel that the smaller agencies might be more involved in YOUR proprty, whereas the larger agencies might get lost in a sea of houses so to speak. Anyway, if anyone is looking for a house (not just mine) in S10 there are a few that might be worth checking out through Archers. Speaking of Saxton Mee...one of my pals works in that Banner Cross office!

Saxton Mee are shocking. Had a couple of experiences with them through the years: inefficient, lazy, incompetent are all words which spring to mind.

Just yesterday, my housemate tried to arrange a couple of viewings with them for today or Sunday (I feel really sorry for anyone trying to let or sell through them) but was told that they couldn't arrange any more than one viewing per day on a property - so no viewing possible on the places she wants to let until next week.

This was after waiting (with lots of other very aggrieved people) for half her lunch hour to see someone, whilst 4 advisors sat chatting doing nothing, because they 'only do sales'.

Somebody at work had the right idea: 'they're so far up their own ar5e5 they couldn't see a house, let alone sell one'.

We have seen a really nice flat but it is through Saxton Mee and they don't seem to be customer focused at all, they didn't even show us round the flat, the landlord did - don't know if they should have been there or not but at least the landlord knew what he was doing.

Plus, £120 for 'admin fees' - do other estate agents have similar fees, it seems a hell of a lot just to have their useless customer service!

Yes, they ALL charge ridiculous fees like that! We went to look at a flat in Kalham Mills the other day rented out by Sheffield Property Lettings (or something like that). She said to secure the flat we had to pay a £100 charge and then had to immediately start going through the credit checks, which cost £30! If they were successful then they wanted a bond which was a months rent plus £100 meaning it was £600! And all before you move in! I asked her what the £100 to secure the flat was for and she said it was normal thing to charge and it didn;t get knocked off your rent or anything, you just lost it for saying that you wanted the flat! RIDICULOUS! I've rented from Northwood before and they didn't want that, but tehy did want a bond and a deopist, so I suppose it's kinda the same.
We're hoping to go privately this tie as it just costs so much to go through an agent. We had a flat at Danile Hill Mews with Pullan Homes and the day after we said we'd have it, they sold it someone! Nice eh?:loopy:
The only thing I can say about Saxton Mee is that they NEVER answer the bloody phone and take DAYS to call you back! They've also failed to turn up to 2 house viewings I've made with them which was more than a little annoying. It does seem that these people get paid for doing virtually nothing at all.

we had a property for sale in hathersage so got various quotes, Saxton Mee seemed to be doing us a favour by quoting ,so went with ELR couldn't fault them excellent service

Jennie - I went to see one at Kelham Island with Sheffield Property Lettings too! Might have been the same one!

I've looked into other agents, and they're all the same, so think I might go for it and hope we don't get any problems with Saxton Mee!! x

I went on a visit to see a house and the representative was late, and just stood and said nothing in the house.

Good point for the company is the website and search facility on it, best out of saxton mee, blundells and elr

We bought a house from Saxton Mee in the last fortnight, have been renting through them for the last 18 month, and can honestly say I have never met such a bunch of cowboys in my life.

Their sales agents have been marginally better than their lettings staff, who have been absolutely incompetent and unbearably rude throughout our tenancy. Believe me, if I could have avoided them when purchasing, I would have.

I my experience, the best way to get the lettings team to do anything is to sit in their office at 5pm and refuse to leave until they have kept their empty promises.