Review of Linley & Simpson
We recently ended our tenancy managed by Linley and Simpson Horsforth and moved abroad. Our tenancy end date was on 28 February 2025 and 40 days later, we are still fighting for our deposit to be returned. We are leaving this review so that the next tenant has a chance to learn from our experience and will avoid this agency at all costs.Linley and Simpson first tried to charge us for a house deep clean and a carpet clean, neither of which was done by them prior to our moving into the property. Despite this, at checkout we paid out of pocket to get the carpet professionally cleaned by The City Cleaners (top rated cleaning firm in Leeds) which we have evidenced with a receipt, too.Next, they tried to charge us for "contaminated bins" which they claimed "the council will not collect". They quoted us GBP 75 to empty each of the 4 bins left outside. Our former neighbour in Leeds thankfully confirmed to us with photos that all bins had very much been cleared by the council on schedule as they usually do, meaning that Linley and Simpson were trying to get money off us for bins that had already been cleared while aware that we have moved abroad and will not be able to visit to check the veracity of their claims.Following this, they refused to accept our photos from check-in. Their excuse was that the photos did not have 'a time stamp on them' but they very much do if you look at the metadata! Most phone users, and most certainly a big lettings agent, will know where to look to see the date on which a photo was taken. This feels very much like a deliberate attempt to dismiss valid evidence to find an excuse to keep our money.After this, they tried to use a previous check-out document without our names or signatures on it to claim property condition and make deductions. Linley and Simpson appear to have lost our signed check-in inventory document and are still trying to get money off of us without a valid signed check-in document to compare or prove status at the start of tenancy.And now that it is clear they have no valid basis to make deductions, they are withholding our deposit with repeated cycles of claiming that they are waiting on the landlord to reply, or asking us the same questions over and over again, causing delays of 1 working week each time as the clock ticks on our window to raise a TDS dispute. Unfortunately we are wise to this, as they used the same excuse for 2.5 years ('we are waiting for the landlord to reply / we cannot reach the landlord') to delay and ultimate avoid repairing our kitchen sink. Multiple contractors engaged by Linley and Simpson confirmed to us that the construction of the kitchen sink was giving way leading to a cavity and water logging, accumulating mould no matter how many times we drained the water, and that the sink area required a refit. Linley and Simpson did not resolve this over the 30 month period since it was reported.Instead they are trying to charge us on checkout in relation to 2 brand new kitchen items that the landlord had ordered to the property. We obviously left these items behind at the time of checkout as they are expensive kitchen items for installation belonging to the landlord. Should we have taken these abroad with us? We are unclear what is expected of us...With no other option, we have now contacted the Tenancy Deposit Scheme to get our money back. On looking at the Linley and Simpson Horsforth branch's Google reviews, there are multiple reviews in recent months by tenants who have moved out only to be refused / delayed in repayment of deposit and they have all needed to contact the Tenancy Deposit Scheme to get their money back, successfully in each case.For context, both our previous rentals were with Linley and Simpson Headingley for a combined total of 8.5 years and both were excellent experiences, we even left a glowing Trustpilot review for that branch in 2021. Sadly, L&S Horsforth seems be nothing like Headingley, and our experience is that they are ineffective and uninterested in representing tenants' interests, and are in fact willing to take questionable actions to retain deposit money legally owed back to tenants. In summary, please AVOID using this agent at all costs.
