5/5
TrustpilotVery good
Very good, very helpful and fast
Trusted Agent profile · Cambridge
SAB Saint Andrews Bureau Ltd Cambridge reviews
★★★★★
311 reviews across 3 platforms
18 Mill Road, Cambridge, CB1 2AD
SAB Saint Andrews Bureau Ltd's office in Cambridge, at 18 Mill Road, is rated 3.6 out of 5 across 311 reviews on three platforms, including 227 Google reviews rated 3.5.
227
Reviews on Google
This office
10
Reviews on Facebook
Business-wide
74
Reviews on Trustpilot
Business-wide
Reviews
Every review we hold for the Cambridge office, from every platform, shown as written. First names only.
Trustpilot1/5
GoogleSeriously, these people Were not polite with me, I had stayed in one of their managed property, though the place was good but their service was impolite and avaricious, I mainly changed my house because of their behaviour. People be careful while renting out from them coz they do have some good houses but they don’t reveal a lot of things unless you ask and they charge more in terms of administration fees. They would also pose liability on you even if the things were already broken or repair, so you got to be particular about that and check properly while moving in and if some thing breaks or stops working just by regular usage you have to make multiple calls and mails in order to fix it. If you guys really like their property take these all into consideration or find a better property agents.
Agent replied · 24 August 2024
We take all complaints seriously and wish to address your matter however the name listed on this review does not appear in our database. Please can you submit your complaint to Claire@sab.co.uk so we can address this.
5/5
GoogleI've been living in Cambridge for 10 years, and have to say SAB is one of the best letting company. They shows very reasonable price properties, and after moved in, they tried to fix all sort of house problems very fast. I heard from many of my friends that other agencies, they just too slow or don't even response for house problem after they move in. Especially, this is the reason I'm writing this review. I had to move out before the contract end because of job relocation. As you know this is very complicated situation, but SAB tries their best to figure out. Also, if I ask some process which I don't understand, they explain clearly again. Of course they will charge penalty fee and lets before new tenant enter, however, I like to emphasis how gentle the way to treat this problem they are. It was very happy to stay house under SAB. Thank you.
Agent replied · 24 August 2024
Our standards of service are important to us so thank you very much for the positive feedback
5/5
TrustpilotI would highly recommend them from a…
I would highly recommend them from a landlord's perspective.
5/5
GoogleMe and my partner had an excellent experience at Sab Cambridge. Everything went smoothly and quickly. Staff was at all times super helpfull. Specially Jordan! Would 100% recommend this agency :)
Agent replied · 24 August 2024
Thank you very much for taking your time to leave us a positive review. We really do appreciate it.
1/5
GoogleRude mannerless and unfriendly male staff in the lettings department, who because of the high level of demands don’t respect and neglect their potential clients. Every time I’ve been in touch with them, it felt like they are doing me a favour to even speak to me (Apart from one friendly woman who once for my luck picked up the phone instead). No replies on emails whatsoever! Moreover, one of the men also hang up on me in the middle of my sentence when I was attempting to ask them about properties via a phone call. I was looking for a good high standard apartment, as a masters overseas student in Cambridge, willing to pay almost any price for a flat, half a year in advance. Firstly they didn’t want to show me flat properties and showed me student accommodations only, even though I explained the circumstances. Then after I left my details no one ever contacted me again, followed by all other series of events described above. Feels like it’s more paperwork that they can’t be bothered with, especially when there is a high demand on properties. Possibly, it’s just SAB’s values, that’s why I will never seek their services again and neither I will recommend it to anyone!
Agent replied · 24 August 2024
We are very concerned to receive such a poor review of our service. We take these matters seriously as our standards to all clients should be high at all times. If you don’t mind contacting us directly as we would like to look into the details of your experience so we can address this and ensure it does not happen again. Please contact Claire Baron - Claire@sab.co.uk
5/5
GoogleI first rented through SAB, Longstanton in 2007 after moving down to Cambridgeshire. All contact was very professional and friendly and I had no reservations, whatsoever. After 7 years, I had to vacate the property to work abroad for a few yesrs. On my return, almost 4 years later, I contacted SAB, Longstanton to view some rental properties. I was amazed and happy to see that the people in the office were the same and remembered me. Indeed, Tracey that showed me round my first property, back in 2007 was able to do the same again in my new property, 10 years later. I have no reservations whatsoever in recommending SAB, Longstanton.... fantastic service... Five star.
Agent replied · 24 August 2024
We are always happy to help and strive for high standards of service so this is great to hear. Thank you.
1/5
GoogleHad a viewing yesterday of a property through these people. The property was in a filthy state with apparently abandoned furniture and so this seems to be the correct way for SAB to show a property to a prospective tenant? I understand the …
Agent replied · 16 April 2026
Thank you for your feedback, and we're very sorry to hear about your recent viewing experience. We agree that properties should be presented in a clean and respectful condition, and it's disappointing to hear that this was not the case. … More
1/5
GoogleWe chose Sab services to let a property because they had some better reviews online and they had less fees than other property offices. Then we realised that there were necessary extra fees for insurance, check in, check out and cleaning fee, so the fee difference was not as it seemed. After the end of the tenancy we moved out and we informed Sab twice to let us know the date and time of the checkout and the inventory check, because we would like to attend, one notice was by email and I also asked an employee at the office, when I returned the keys, to note that we would like to attend at the checkout, which he did note it on the envelope with the keys, but the property manager didn't inform us. However, we charged the checkout fees. I find it very disrespectful and unprofessional that the property manager didn't take that under consideration and didn't invite us to attend.
Agent replied · 24 August 2024
Dear Angelo, Firstly we are sorry to see that you were not happy with the service you received from us. We have not been able to trace you without your surname to look into your matter and would welcome the opportunity to do so. Please could you email your name and property address to Cambridge@sab.co.uk so we can do so? From regular market research we can say that we carry some of the lowest charges compared to other local agents. There are two charges to tenants made by SAB which are clearly stated within our terms, on our website and more importantly, attached to every tenancy application so applicants are aware prior to applying to rent one of our properties. There is an initial fee upon application and a checkout fee. We do not make any charges to tenants for cleaning at the end of a tenancy even if we make the necessary arrangements on their behalf as this is all included within the checkout fee. With regards to insurance, again the requirements are set out in advance. Tenants are required to ensure they have insurance that covers them against any accidental damage that they may cause to the landlords contents, fixtures or fittings. The reason for this is to provide protection to landlords in having insurance cover to rectify accidental damage but also safe guards the tenants against having the pay high costs for replacing carpets, sinks, baths, work tops etc which they may accidentally damage. Tenants are only required to provide proof of having such a policy and this can be taken with any insurance provider a tenant chooses. We also apologise that you were not in attendance when the Property Manager carried out the checkout. You have not mentioned this leading to any proposed deposit charges that you were not agreeable with so we hope you received your deposit refund without issue. Please do not hesitate to contact us further should you wish so we can investigate. Thank you for taking the time to leave your review and if we are given the opportunity to deal with you again we would endeavour to provide the standard of service expected. Thank you SAB
3/5
GoogleI'd rate lower, but lettings is a sharky business at the best of times. Inordinately fond of their 6-month contracts, presumably to harvest admin fees. The tenancy contracts and paperwork are a bit sloppy and could use a good ironing out. Property maintenance is mostly up to scratch with all major issues fixed, but not always without a struggle. Expected to provide my own lawn mower to maintain the garden as contractually obliged, as well as key to access the meter box in order to satisfy utility companies. In conclusion, quite a few irritations and never a pleasure to interact with, but so far have upheld their end of the deal.
Agent replied · 24 August 2024
Dear Kieron, We appreciate you taking the time to post a review. In response to some of your points listed we respond as follows: The covering letter sent with each 6 month fixed term renewal provides tenants with the option of the tenancy continuing on a Periodic Assured Shorthold which is a rolling monthly basis and does not require any additional contracts to be produced or signed and therefore no charges apply. If we are asked by tenants if the fixed term can be increased from 6 months to a longer term, we refer to the landlord and proceed with their instructions/ requirements in terms of what they are agreeable to offer the tenant. Our contracts have recently been reviewed by an independent solicitor and although minor amendments have been made, generally they have been approved as compliant and clear. If tenants raise any issues with wording we take this on boards and determine if our documents can be improved accordingly. You are renting an unfurnished property and your landlord does not see it their responsibility to provide a lawn mower. We seek to provide a helpful friendly service to all tenants to ensure it is a pleasure to interact with us. We are sorry you feel you have not experienced this from us and will endeavour to improve this in future. We thank you for your review and look forward to providing a good service to you in future. Kind regards, SAB
5/5
TrustpilotAlways efficient in responding to…
Always efficient in responding to problems
5/5
GoogleSAB Lettings in Cambridge were amazing! Great service, attitude and so helpful with local knowledge, above and beyond! thank you so much, I will recommend your service.
Agent replied · 24 August 2024
We are very proud of our team here at SAB so thank you for giving them such a positive review as it’s a real boost.
5/5
GoogleLived in a property in Cambridge of SAB. Very supportive Agency and helped me in around three instances instantly during my stay when help was required (like fixing heater, giving substitute heater while the main heater was fixed). The offboardingprocess was also quite smooth. Definitely one of the best Agency in UK
Agent replied · 24 August 2024
Your positive feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much for taking the time to leave us a review.
1/5
GoogleShame you cannot put 0 stars as it would be a better reflection of the amount of effort they put in doing a good (or at least decent) job! I believe if you're a landlord, they might be ok as they will allow you to do less than the bare minimum for your property and tenant. If you're a tenant though, be ready to be ignored, get important information late and be scammed out of hundreds when you leave - regardless of how much care you've given the property. Had to take it to the TDS to get some of my deposit back (which I did since I'm not an incompetent liar). The quality of the agency is reflected in the quality of the properties they manage (poor) as no decent landlord would want to trust them with their goods! Never again ✌🏻
1/5
GoogleIf I could give this pathetic excuse for an estate agent a 0, then I would. We have experienced nothing but stress for the past two years since being with them. Firstly, I'd just like to say how awful and useless the reception team are. One woman in particular, a blonde, (who I haven't seen in a while, fingers crossed she's no longer with them.) But most of their 'customer service' has been incredibly rude and uncaring. Every time we have simply asked them for help it has been 'I'll let the property manager know', aka as we'll do nothing about it. Just before moving in, they managed to 'accidentally' put my room back on the market. They also 'accidentally' overcharged me and the other tennants in our house, and had to refund us a great deal. As well as that, we were told our house had been thoroughly cleaned and remaitanenced before moving in. Since then, we have had water dripping into our circuit box, causing our electricity to go off, and parts of plaster to crumble off walls and door frames, despite being told that they had checked over our house. Along with my room and the rest of the house but absolutely filthy, with grimy floors and cobwebs everywhere. Most recently, we were told that we were supposed to have a gardener visit every two weeks. In two years, we haven't seen a gardener once. I could easily go on about the incompetence and horrendous service we have experienced with this agency, but to summarise do not trust them, you will save yourself a lot of trouble. This agency needs a serious make over, it is no way near enough the amount of money they charge us.
Agent replied · 24 August 2024
Dear Chloe, We have taken time to seriously look into the details of your complaint and wish to therefore respond to each matter you have raised. Firstly we can of course only apologise if you ever felt that staff were rude or unhelpful towards you as a company we take pride in offering a high standard of service and feel that the team of staff we have provide exactly that. We can see that you are renting a room in one of the shared student houses we manage with several others and your tenancy started in August 2015. The over charging that you mentioned was not precisely correct in terms of a charge made by SAB but rather a change in the rent payment date. The rent you pay is your landlords money and is not an SAB charge. We initially took a full months rent when your tenancy started mi month but a few months into the tenancies it seemed to make sense to be fair to all including the tenants and landlord for the rent payments to fall on the first of the month and therefore a pro rata charge was made of a reduced amount for a month for this to then fall into place. If you did not reduce your payment that month it would have been processed as a credit refund to you. The house is an old Victorian terraced house and was refurbished throughout in 2013 and then maintenance carried out as required since including in the summer of 2015 prior to the start of your tenancy. Leaks cannot be foreseen and the leak you mentioned occurred out of hours and was dealt with promptly as is all maintenance and all matters reported both in and out of office hours. Crumbling plaster in an old building is again unforeseen but can be the nature of an old building and such matters are always deal with and repaired. The cleaners are required to attend to the basics of the communal areas only such as cleaning floors, wiping down woodwork and kitchen unit fronts, sides etc. If tenants leave belongings and/ or used items out it is not their responsibility to move these to clean so tenants need to share the responsibility of keeping the communal areas clean. We can never guarantee that a cleaner will do a perfect job every week and if we ever receive a complaint about a poor job we raise it with the company and if need be we change cleaning companies. The property has a courtyard area garden. A gardener attends twice a year. We are not sure who mentioned every two weeks to you but there is not enough to maintain to warrant visits so often apart from clearing rubbish from BBQ’s and such like which would be the tenants responsibility. We can see that you decided to renew your tenancy in August to stay for another year so we hope this reflects the living standards to be acceptable. Many of the other tenants in the property use the property managers email address to liaise with him directly which maintains good relations so you may wish to consider doing the same to ensure a direct communication channel for all future matters. Thank you. The Directors SAB
4/5
GoogleWork is fast. Speed is also required here, such as being asked to submit a report at the time of move-in within 48 hours. I'm thankful that so many things can be done web-based. Although the exact details were not shown when I moved out and the cost was higher than expected, I got a reasonable percentage of my deposit back.
5/5
GoogleAs a tenant, we got excellent service from SAB throughout our tenancy. They were polite, helpful and accomodating all the time. Special thanks to Jackie D.
Agent replied · 24 August 2024
It is always lovely to hear such positive feed back so thank you.
1/5
GoogleSAB fit all the negative stereotypes of letting agents. Prepare for them to do the bare minimum when it comes to helping tenants, and all they can when it comes to charging you for anything. Prepare to take lots of photos when you first move in as they will take literally hundreds of photos when you move out to charge you exorbitant prices for cleaning you already did. They suddenly care about cleanliness at that point after years of being perfectly happy to let you live with a mouldy bathroom, and telling you to clean it yourself when your report that you found that an item of furniture had a large hidden patch of mould all along. Prepare for your emails to be ignored when you report bug infestations, but prepare to receive rude emails very quickly when clerical errors on their side lead them to think, incorrectly, that you're £35 in arrears. I don't think I've had any pleasant interactions with SAB during 8 years of renting, whether that's in person or by email, except maybe with the younger staff who run the viewings who are nice enough. Avoid if you can.
1/5
GoogleTo sum up: after having me run around for a month trying to find new tenants, during which time the agency changed their tune several times, denied having recieved emails from me, claimed they had told me things which they hadn't, and did not give me sufficient notice, SAB are now moving me to a new property. Their initial plan had me giving back the keys to my current place two days before receiving the keys for the new place which they only corrected after I queried it. Over this month I had thought everything was settled at least three times, each time with SAB throwing another spanner in the works. I'm due to move tomorrow, and I just don't trust that it'll go smoothly any more. The agency as a whole seem to have a great deal of trouble with internal communication. I have spoken to several individuals during this process and each one seems to have no idea I've even spoken to the other. At this point, I hardly need to mention the fees- other reviews have adequately covered SAB's tendecy to bleed a tenant dry at every single opportunity.
Agent replied · 24 August 2024
Our Company policy is not to discuss individual cases but we can confirm that we take all complaints seriously and such complaints made formally to us are dealt with through our internal complaints procedures and if necessary through the third party professional bodies of which we are a member and therefore remain compliant with their regulations. We are confident that the great majority of clients dealing with us remain satisfied with our service such is their feedback. Sab's customer support
1/5
GoogleThe house was grimey when we moved in. They claimed they had it professionally cleaned yet there was cobwebs everywhere. It was the same for the other houses on the street. We had to demand new mattresses! They just flipped them over to hide stains from previous tenants. How unhygienic. Many of the staff have a terrible, unfriendly and stuck up attitude. Im hoping they give deposits back with no issues at least. Whats worst is the amount of money they get from our house alone and still cant afford to maintain things efficiently. The 4*+ reviews on here sound fake tbh, i know of quite a few people living with this agency with the similar issues.
Agent replied · 24 August 2024
Our Company policy is not to discuss individual cases but we can confirm that we take all complaints seriously and such complaints made formally to us are dealt with through our internal complaints procedures and if necessary through the third party professional bodies of which we are a member and therefore remain compliant with their regulations. We are confident that the great majority of clients dealing with us remain satisfied with our service such is their feedback. Sab's customer support
1/5
GoogleAWFUL!! I have been in rental accommodation for over 14 years and SAB are by far the worst tenancy agency I have ever encountered. They are liars (poor ones at that) and will drain you of every penny they possibly can. Reception staff are rude, unprofessional and patronising. I can closely relate to the negative issues raised by the other google reviews as we have encountered many of the same problems when moving out of our last rented property. Aside from SABs deceitful paper work and poor communication by reception staff, they clearly only care about their wealthy property developer clientele. The only reason the business is still running is on the back of a thriving and competitive rental market in Cambridge. In most other cities/regions SAB wouldn't stand a chance and their dreadful service to tenants would not be tolerated or accepted. If you are you fortunate enough to read these reviews before letting with SAB I would strongly advise you to avoid them. For any landlords who read this I would ask you to demand more from your agency as surely it is in your best interest to have happy tenants in your properties. Good luck to anyone who has to deal with SAB, We never will again under any circumstance!
Agent replied · 24 August 2024
Our Company policy is not to discuss individual cases but we can confirm that we take all complaints seriously and such complaints made formally to us are dealt with through our internal complaints procedures and if necessary through the third party professional bodies of which we are a member and therefore remain compliant with their regulations. We are confident that the great majority of clients dealing with us remain satisfied with our service such is their feedback. Sab's customer support
5/5
TrustpilotAn excellent service from SAB
We have used SAB for several years and we have found them to be extremely efficient, organised and consistently offer an excellent service. They pay great attention to detail and use high quality tradespeople to complete jobs on time. I would highly recommend the SAB team.
5/5
TrustpilotLovely people
I was living in a flat for just under 5 years and whenever there was an issue SAB always responded as soon as soon as they could. Every person I've encountered has been lovely. No problem is too big. Thank you for such a good experience.
1/5
GoogleRegrettably, my initial encounter with the designated agent, whom I contacted to inquire about available properties, was marked by a conspicuous lack of enthusiasm in assisting me. Rather than offering substantive guidance, the agent merely advised me to peruse the company's website. To my dismay, the specific property of interest was purportedly unavailable for viewings, a detail conspicuously absent from their online platform. It is my humble suggestion that, in the interest of transparency, the agency should consider adding a notice to their website indicating their preference for when properties are off the market for viewing. Given the inauspicious nature of this inaugural interaction, one can only surmise that a continuation to the viewing and leasing stages may prove increasingly challenging. Shame such an agency is based in Cambridge.
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