I was asked to review oakwood as we bought our house through them 6 weeks ago. Strangely though we never received the email invite from oakwood once we agreed. Oakwood represented the seller and I expect she was delighted with their service. Unfortunately we were the buyers. Things started great, our rep (Nigel) was quick to introduce himself and was efficient to call with updates as the sales process began. As a buyer however Oakwood didn't provide the best experience and whilst I appreciate their loyalty must rest with their client they could have been more open in how they kept us informed. There were instances where oakwood informed us of things that ultimately hadn't been agreed with their client. One example was that they seemed to be very happy for us to send an inspector to the property to service the boiler and confirm it was in proper working order. Oakwood even provided us the contact details of their recommended contractor. We arranged the inspection only for the seller to refuse him entry on the day. We also felt that oakwood were complicit in delaying the completion date to benefit the seller - which caused significant upset on both sides of the chain. Kudos to Oakwood here for doing right by their client but they really should not have pushed our own conveyancers to a tight deadline to then delay the completion at the last minute. Communications deteriorated towards the end of the sales process with calls not being returned very often. Often Oakwood would refuse to help us make reasonable requests to the seller citing that the seller was unreasonable and the rep had no intention of negotiating or potentially upsetting her. We were refused a viewing to measure the living room and had to go through our conveyencor to request that the garden be maintained before completion. I feel Oakwood could have helped a lot more here. The completion itself could have gone smoother. Again the seller got exactly what she wanted but: #1 the seller was delayed in handing in the keys #2 Oakwood were fully aware that I was standing outside the house (with a team of cleaners) waiting to vacate the house yet our rep. took a lunch break and was unavailable for the hour. As I waited for the keys i visited Oakwoods office for an update. The staff there were preoccupied on the phones and didn't acknowledge my wait until a few minutes. They ignored me well before they knew who I was so presumably new clients of theirs might be treated similar. We were alarmed that the oakwood staff had literally zero knowledge of the house sale - my rep worked in a different branch and had never visited the house nor informed the local branch that I was due to collect the keys. We reached a tense standoff once the keys had been dropped at the agents. The local staff had no knowledge that I'd be collecting the keys and they refused to hand them over to me until the rep authorization it. In the end I literally grabbed the keys and walked out of the door - the rep knew we needed immediate access to the house yet made himself unavailable at the critical hour which was not professional. I believe Oakwood do a lot of good for their direct clients but I suggest they acknowledge that buyers of their properties deserve more open communication to avoid inevitable disappointments.