Purple Frog, Birmingham

We didn’t have much contact with the letting agency this year but they were okay in sorting viewings and helping us with the contract, however there were a number of issues with the wordings which took a long time to sort

They blamed us and charged us for things that we were not personally responsible for. They were very slow for maintenance and left us without heating for 2 weeks.

Purple Frog seemed responsive, but the outcome was often not good. The biggest issues are: basic state of the property, heating in downstairs bedroom poor, blinds not working and PF's refusal to return a good percentage of the deposit. They agreed to replace the settee but then dumped it in the front garden, it was there for 6 months and took at least three calls to get it removed. It was only removed when prospective clients came round. At the end of the tenancy they inspected the property and wanted to charge for various items, we corrected these (like hovering the staircase which was dark because they hadn't replaced the light bulb). We agreed a deposit figure which was signed off, BUT they then changed the figures downwards afterwards without agreement. We have been arguing for months to get our full deposit back. Be very careful about using them, they will not return your full deposit.

Agency was an absolute p*sstake. Very slow to respond to maintenance requests. Broke our contract and the law multiple times by not giving enough notice before entry to show prospective tenants around, didn't provide the inventory promptly. The worst aspect is their complete disregard for students and basically being organised scammers. Tried to make us pay for multiple things out of our deposit that were completely false, including trying to charge for late rent and bills even though this was all done through their direct debit system. Conmen and would avoid at all costs

Our maintenance man responded relatively quickly to urgent maintenance such as leaks in the upstairs ceiling. Agency was pretty average.

Didn't use letting agent for any maintenance or contact over the year. Fees were probably expensive af, but they were v easy to sort out the tenancy beforehand. ALWAYS gave us notice when people weren't viewing the property.

Agency fees expensive, bad communicators and don't investigate into problems. Always a struggle to deal with.

Purple Frog were mainly a good agency however we had to do a lot of chasing up with issues- e.g. when we had no boiler we were offered heaters but these were not sent over. We were also sometimes notified of viewings at a very short notice, however, when we cancelled them they complied.

The property is with Purple Frog. The agency is generally good with responding to needed repairs, however, sometimes they need to be reminded more than once.
The maintenance team that the agency use are really friendly and do the job well.

I would advise to take pictures of the whole property, paying particular attention to the issues and email this over to the agency.

Agency took weeks to reply to issues such as broken fridge and needed constant reminding. Also confusion about payments

Purple Frog are frustrating because everything takes forever to solve, each issue took me following up again and again to actually get sorted. The contractors they use are amazing and really friendly though.

Did not really have much to do with agency besides inital things like securing the house. They were not helpful when we complainted about a few things the landlord did not fix/sort out, for example how the house was an absolute mess when we moved in and the landlord promised cleaners would come and sort it but this never happened.

They do absolutely nothing. Awful experience with them when we first moved into the property and had all of the issues aforementioned- they didn't help us push the landlords to take action at all. The agency basically act as the middle man, aka take your money, but do nothing.

Where to even start with purple frog? Today hearing their name or walking past their agency makes my blood boil.
Throughout the onborading process they were ok. Many in shop staff were nice and polite, and sometimes repair people were sent over promptly especially for more serious problems . But the positives end here .
Firstly I highly doubt any form of clean was done let alone a deep clean, before we arrived. I think they simply left what the previous tenants had done. Under the fridge was disgusting with rotting food , dust and nerf gun pellets (so definitely not us). The side of the fridge between the wall had what my mother described as a rats nest . Purple Frog did nothing to clean this or apologise.
For weeks/months at the start of the tenancy they did very little to remove an old black sofa from our front garden (the only garden space on the property). The sofa was filled with slugs, smelt and looked ugly and unpleasant . On this task they were very slow and did little to help us .
Throughout the tenancy they sent repairs quickly but never seemed to pay them enough / for enough hours to actually fix the problem permanently.
The major issue came when deposits were due back. They sent round an individual who had not even done the first check so had no idea what to look out for . Then they wrote our deductions in such a scruffy illegible way that it was impossible to tell what we were being charged for etc . I was livid as they in total took something like £1,300 originally and the paper they handed us to confirm this looked like it had been written by a child that never left primary school. It then took them months to type up this scrap of hieroglyphics. When they finally did and we were able to read it, it was for ridiculous things . They were charging £95 for the over which was vile on arrival in September. £75 for a deep clean of the living room - despite the house not having a living room... in stead it had an extenddd piece of floor from the kitchen where there happened to be a tv and sofa . In effect it did not require a £75 cleaning fee . The kitchen was then accused of requiring a £110 cleaning fee which was a scam as we had cleaned the entire Space and fridge for 7 hours the day before we left. The list is boring and goes on .... so I won’t continue. Although not perfect we certainly didn’t deserve the fines we were presented with . I was charged £15 for having left my originally rubbisha nd broken desk chair in the kitchen rather than my room....
They then took months to return the deposit and ultimately reduced the fine by very little . On returning the deposit they sent the wrong amount 4 times , called me 3 times claiming I had taken too much money at which point I had none of their money, and then sent all £3,400 to one person. It was incredibly unprofessional and lagged on till November when I had started a war abroad in France !!!! Sending all the money to one individual is ridiculous- how do they know that individual is trustworthy or that you’re still friends with them etc ??
The delay in deposit giving back could be very very detrimental to people who need it for the first rent of their next property.

Finally we have revived evidence from our friend who happens to live in the property now that they have done none of the repairs or paint jobs they asked us to pay for . We were fuming.

Purple Frog is no a letting agency in my eyes, it is a scamming agency bordering on criminal behvaiour.

Quick repairs but VERY difficult w/deposit at end of year.Take dateable photos moving in

Easy to contact and will get the job done but sometimes can take a while if issue isn’t urgent.

Repairs done quickly and efficiently, lovely repair staff that come round! Some agency fee but none for continuing customers I believe?

Purple Frog decent. Fees decent. Dealt mostly with landlord for issues and complaints etc

Repairs were moderatley quick. They arrived quickly when our boiler was broke. Other repairs are sometimes slow

Good with smaller issues but a nightmare with some major ones. Took months to fix and were very rude to my housemate on the phone

I have had mixed experiences with purple frog, sometimes they are quick to respond and other times they do not at all.

Their method of rent collection has been a constant source of issues for me, as for the whole of last year it did not recognise I had set up my payments.

Most of the time reliable but not very good at communicating i.e. when the landlord says something can't be done, they don't tell us and just ignore the problem instead of explaining the situation

We were also told we were going to be charged for maintenance AFTER they had completed the job and not before which was not ideal

Good agency, very prompt with emails and always told us about viewings, however overpriced.