“The narrative is: Warwick thought they could do a better job. This became an assertion that they are the Muhammad Ali of property management - we are the greatest - they declared. They never were of course, and the faster they grew the more they failed.
Now managing 1500 developments and 50,000 dwellings according to their latest self promoting video they ought to be far better and more organised than they are, but it seems they were just people having-a-go at managing, or perhaps the truth is closer to mismanaging more and more properties. How is it possible for a company that is so inept is allowed to handle tens of millions of their clients' money? The answer presumably is the myth of regulation and the abject failure of Parliament and UK's legal system once thought to be the standard for all the world to emulate.
Warwick are quite a dishonest company that has at times helped themselves to people's money. Most of the time they are merely telephone operators with fancy titles making calls to service providers to fix something that might not be broken had they done their jobs properly in the first place.
RICS are no longer a serious regulator, if they ever were, instead RICS are a member compensated organisation paying lip service to their code of conduct and sheltering their members. One way they do this is by keeping their investigations secret. In a recent RICS disciplinary hearing Warwick boasted of having the industry leading gold star risk management system, only RICS never asked to see it, so whether Warwick do or they don't cannot be determined, but they certainly know little or nothing about risk assessments.
Having abandoned residents of one building to several days without heating or hot water, and no fire detection or alarm system, and no emergency light system, they did not inform the residents of the circumstances. Asked if they had done a risk assessment they said they had not, and wondered why anyone would think they should have.
If fire detection and alarm systems can be allowed to be out of service, then they are not really needed in the first place, except we all know they are mandatory. On another occasion post Grenfell Tower they wired closed a smoke venting system in a block for at least 2 weeks and again failed to notify residents.
Warwick act as if they have been granted a royal prerogative so they can conduct themselves as if they are above the law, because that is exactly how they behave. Of course that means the landlord they represent also has wide contempt for the law. However it has to be said that for people to be able to violate the law year after year and get away with it, the law must be feeble to begin with, and the courts incapable of upholding the law, but first Parliament must have made a complete mess of writing laws that unenforceable and have no teeth, no serious monetary sanctions, no custodial sentences, and as if to prove the point about RICS, all existing regulators either can do nothing, will do nothing, or simply don't case. Presumably they all think, like Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson that the law is an ass or otherwise it is there to use against ordinary people, but the born-to-rule, the aristocracy and the wealthy and influential people of Britain are largely exempt. The Royal Family, it seems, is a much larger group of people than we imagined it to be. No wonder Prince Andrew has told the USA to get lost.
What could possibly result in Warwick year after year failing to produce those legally mandated sets of accounts for a development. There is a long list of possible explanations, but the most likely is they are simply drowning. They don't have enough people to do the work, and they lack competency in all kinds of ways. How many years? Well, three consecutive years at least, and almost certainly four. We'll know soon enough.
Warwick's internal disciplinary proceedings is a sham, it is there to make them look good, but it is simply unavailable, meaning you can complain all you like, they don't care, so don't waste your time.
Communication is key to every aspect of human life and good communications are essential in business, especially any business with more than one employee, but Warwick treats communications as a bit of a joke. They are not serious about communication. Ask a tough question and they probably won't reply at all. Ask them a question they find inconvenient and they will send some sort of irrelevant reply, or avoid answering directly, or resort to one of a list of excuses they no doubt have beside each computer terminal.
I think the measure of their contempt for the law is reflected in their continually daring us to take them to tribunal, something they consider a trivial matter, because, they say, they win 99% of their tribunal cases. They are presumably either lying, or otherwise surely they have to have tribunal panels in their pocket, what do you think?
Overall, the message to anyone who has never been involved with them is - you've been fortunate - but if you are considering them, don't, you'll regret it, and perhaps the more pertinent message is try to avoid becoming a leaseholder if it is the last thing you do.
In UK leasehold situations are toxic. Countries we would once have considered uncivilised, and more recently as emerging nations, do a much better job with their leasehold laws and protections of tenants, but then UK is not the competent four nations it once was, and the abject handling of our own epidemic version of the SARS-CoV-2 / Covid-19 pandemic is as much proof of that as we require, unless we are afflicted by wilful blindness of course and like Trump think we've done the best job of any nation.
Leasehold - avoid like the plague … If unable, Warwick - avoid at all costs.”
“Simply atrocious. Warwick needs to work much harder on their customer service, comminication, quality of service and value for money. They never properly answer our emails, they're always very cagey and dodge or blatently ignore questions. Service is at the low quality end of property maintenance, costs are high and don't represent the low quality of work provided, and generally the property managers they've appointed to our development are unenthusiastic and disinterested.”
“The most obstructive company I’ve ever encountered. Apalling customer service. Arrogant and obtrusive senior managers who go to great lengths to avoid answering questions. Erroneous service charges. High churn of property managers who know very little about property management. Years of missing annual service charge accounts. Anomalies and errors in annual service charge accounts. Residents constantly having to complain to try and get things resolved. Never ending intransigence. Nothing ever improves.”
“Lowest of the low. They have the worst reputation in property management. Nothing has improved since they've been managing my estate. Most things have got a lot worse. They need to be banned from property management. Come on RICS, HSE and ARMA, it's time something was done about this terrible company.”
“It's not often you encounter a company with such terrible service that it doesn't just leave you disappointed but it leaves you shocked and dumbfounded by its unapologetic acceptance of its low standards. Warwick Estates is such a company.
The property management services from Warwick Estates are shoddy to say the least. With Warwick Estates at the helm, if something can go wrong then it definitely will go wrong. Since Warwick Estates took over managing our development there's been nothing but trouble. We repeatedly find the property managers at Warwick Estates to be slow to respond, frequently taking them months to just acknowledge a problem after it has been brought to their attention. They have been late in attempting to fix essential repairs, frequently costing residents many times the cost had repairs been implemented straight away, but they allow minor faults to develop into major faults. Financial accounts issued by Warwick Estates contain errors and take 4 years to produce, meaning our development has not received financial accounts for the last 4 years, and those accounts issued so far contained errors anyway.”
“Warwick estates are fraudsters and more than useless. Nothing ever gets done
Staff haven’t got a clue with what’s going on the only thing there interested in is
Service Charge demands and collecting there charges. Never receive replies to emails or phone calls
I feel it’s time they were taken to task in a big way And I am sure on our development
This is about to happen. Had enough.”
“They are just criminals
They are just criminals. overcharging for everything and scamming left to right.
They abuse their situation and do not provide any service or repair.
the property they charge over 1750 GBP per year to "maintain" is a sh!thole where they haven't shown up in 3 years. never made anything there yet they charge for made-up stuff. they are just a criminal organization.”
“Behind the artificial forums, Warwick Estates provides the most disgusting level of customer service that I have ever received from a company. It is quite evident that Warwick Estates peddles a false image through public forums, while it continues to provide the same terrible service as the attrocious service which it unenthusuastically inflicts on my block of flats. My experience of Warwick Estates shows a catalogue of ignored support requests, rude responses and errors in their work.”
“Our development feels very let down by Warwick Estates. They won the contract to look after our development with their big promises, but since then, they simply failed to deliver even the minimum services expected of a property services agent. We've found Warwick Estates to be slow, poor communicators, full of excuses, evasive and argumentative.”
“Our problems withe WE continue. I fail to understand how companies like this can operate in plain view. Useless Savid Javid was supposed to sort it out and failed big time. No ombudsman - monitored by cronies. The onlt time they respond to anything is invoicing and letting you know they are not liable for a problem. Scum is too nice a word for them. And if you want a laugh read the fake reviews they write in Trustpilot.”
“We have had a breakdown of our lift for 3 months had a letter yesterday saying it will cost 50 000 blocks I have looked on kones lift website they do replacements for 35 years I have been in facilities management for 35 years and your feeding us be terrible service my number is 07886570171 please pgone”
“This is not a management company as they are only interested in extracting fees, refuse to answer any letters of complaints, fail to pay suppliers despite them having collected the funds, in an attempt to cause a dispute. We suspect they are involved in a criminal network to obtain properties by deception, by failing to maintain properties to then use their partners in crime to sell below under market value and profit in hundreds of thousands. Stay away.”
“1 star just because I had to select something however ZERO is what they deserve !
Over 1 year waiting for this useless company to fix a water leak effecting 3 flats ( but mine in particular ) in a block of flats.
I mean over 1 year, from November 2018 !!!
The randomly answer emails and keep blaming other flats not to allow access when we ( the owners and tenants of the flats ) do talk to each other and only get emails ignored !!!
We are in a block of over 100 flats each paying about £280pcm and this company just plays all of us like stupid in order not to spend for a contractor to fix a problem.
Stay away... worst company ever!!!!!!!”
“Awful company with awful service and the epitaxy of everything that is wrong with leasehold.
If you have reached the point where you are leaving a bad review then go one step further and complain to the ombudsman ARMA. Together we can remove the unscrupulous from the market and the sooner the better.”
“My estate has been "managed" by Warwick Estates for over a year now and while there's been a lot of talk over the months, and many assurances, there has been very little ACTION! Promises are made but actions do not follow. The staff accept that action is needed but they simply do not ensure that it is carried out. There is no sense of urgency about the staff I have been dealing with. In addition to this they seem to think that our estate is somehow theirs, in spite of the fact that we are employing them and therefore paying them!
Warwick Estates' CEO delivers grand statements, but I am afraid that his staff, on the ground, in the regional office responsible for my development at least, simply do not deliver. And when you challenge the staff about their failure to deliver, they place the blame on the contractors.
Unfortunately all of Warwick's staff whom I have come in contact with are comparative youngsters who have probably never owned their own home and therefore have no practical idea and appreciation of how very important it is to maintain a home in tip-top order, never mind maintain in tip-top order a whole estate with all its gardens and various other parts.
I am afraid that the residential managing agent business in the UK is a racket, which the government really does need to do something about. The government has acknowledged that the UK's managing agents are wildly out of control and that they need regulating, but nothing has yet been done, and so in the meantime agents like Warwick Estates continue to take estate management fees without delivering the fine service that they advertise.”
“If I could leave zero stars for the appalling service we receive form Warwick Estates I certainly would. As well as being inept and incompetent at looking after the development, they are also rude, underhand and unpleasant to deal with. The mentality of this company is to use attack as the first line of defence. If you own a property and have the misfortune of Warwick Estates being assigned as your Managing Agent, sell it immediately before they devalue your property.”
