Trusted Agent profile · Norwich
★★★★★
1,586 reviews across 2 platforms
5 Bank Plain, Norwich, NR2 4SF, NR2 4SF
William H Brown's office in Norwich, at 5 Bank Plain, is rated 2.6 out of 5 across 1,586 reviews on two platforms, including 387 Google reviews rated 4.2.
Tell us what you need and we'll put you in touch. William H Brown Auction Norwich hasn't joined The Trusted Agent yet, so we'll pass your enquiry to them or to up to three other top-rated agents near Norwich.
Every review we hold for the Norwich office, from every platform, shown as written. First names only.
5/5
GoogleAlthough I have had my buyer pull out - I have had enjoyed the experience of looking at houses. Staff that have really stood out as exceptionally bright and supportive were Laurence Gage and Kristen ( sorry don't know your last name) They were so buoyant and helpful and went the extra mile each time. Most importantly their great sense of humour was a gift. Thank you it has been great meeting you both and know you are an asset to Browns- you will go far
2/5
TrustpilotRented a property from William h brown…
Rented a property from William h brown in Norwich . Unfortunately had a bad experience, reported issues and took a long time to get resolved. Would advise anyone looking at rentals managed by them to avoid
1/5
TrustpilotPossibly the worse letting agents in the world
I'd give them zero stars if that were an option. The letting agents are two-faced, unreliable, dishonest, unpleasant, and only out for money. They are thoroughly nasty human beings. They change your energy supplier to one they prefer (without your consent) and tell your current supplier that you're leaving them. Then you are charged at the highest rate and they won't sort the problem out. That's just ONE of the many, many, many problems with them. AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE!
1/5
TrustpilotWilliam Browns Hull …
Terrible service if there was an option for minus stars would use DO NOT USE worst service I have ever received would never choose this company again and strongly recommend others not too. Myself and my partner paid out £600 for their services to help purchasing our house they did nothing we chased them up. They blamed Covid over the whole thing utterly not an excuse for incompetent and unprofessional service heard from others they have had similar experience judging by this they won’t be in business much longer .
1/5
TrustpilotI must say I have never rented before…
I must say I have never rented before and thought william h brown would be a great company to rent through as you not only get the place you want but a great support network, how wrong was I the staff are rude and not helpful when i phoned up about things not working like the shower not working I get told it's nothing to do with us you have to call the maintenance department so I call them they then tell me we have to phone the landlord, so I said ok well I am disabled and can not actually have a bath so a shower is a must , 5 weeks later shower still not fixed I phoned them every day and was told have not got hold of the landlord to which i told them u paid you my rent so why dont you just fix it and bill the landlord no we can not do that I was told so after 5 weeks of having strip down washes I had had enough and complained to there main office in Birmingham which was sequence homes, they finally got someone out to me the next week, but I am still waiting for 10 other jobs to be done , do not rent through William h brown the staff are rude and unhelpful I have asked for a refund of the rent I paid upfront and I would move out as the place is that bad but they just ignore me so I would never rent from this company ever and would suggest others to go elsewhere . Very unprofessional.
5/5
TrustpilotGood job, Jack Elston from william H Brown Stevenage Branch
Purchasing or selling a property can be a very stressful time . Finding a real good estate agent is crucial . I am so pleased to have Jack Elston from William H Brown Stevenage as my agent. He is so efficient ,professional , friendly... He has done everything possible to make things going smoothly. Good job, Jack.Thank you so much.
1/5
TrustpilotI have used William H Brown for letting…
I have used William H Brown for letting for the last year and I’m appalled at their customer service! You never get to speak to the same person twice and when you do most of the staff are incompetent and at times rude. The only thing they are good at is charging for their service . I literally have got to the stage where I can’t phone them anymore and as for renting a house THEY have really put me off.
1/5
Trustpilotavoid at all costs
avoid at all costs; the agents are stubborn and nasty
5/5
GoogleBrian was amazing at helping us secure our student housing and going beyond the limits needed to ensure that we were informed.PositiveResponsiveness, Quality, Professionalism, Value
1/5
TrustpilotNO RESPONSE AT ALL FROM THE COMPANY
Wanting to enquire a rental property 2 days ago, no one pick up the call, email and all I want to know is whether the property is pet-friendly. I tried to call the company by 20times and 3+ emails, even the livechat on the website could not help me with anything.
1/5
TrustpilotDO NOT GIVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
DO NOT GIVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESSAs a purchaser, wanting to view properties in the area, I made this mistake with the scunthorpe branch and got no end of marketing emails and rubbish despite me making quite clear initially that i did not want them. It took 3 attempts to get them to stop and remove me from their system, as you can imagine the 3rd email wasn't so polite.Would not entertain now or in the future .
1/5
TrustpilotSHAMBLES from start to finish.
SHAMBLES from start to finish.We were renting tenants with William H Brown and in short here are some of the issues we faced:-Only sent us extra forms to fill in days before we were due to move in-Apparently needed to know every detail from every inch of our lives in the application period. We're both are in full time permanent employment and that's all you should need to require.... is my partners military ID number and references from high ranking officers really necessary ??- Had to get contents insurance and prove this paperwork to them, but only with providers they wanted to work with....-A branch 20+ miles from the house was handling the process and expected us to pick up keys from there even though there's a WHB branch less than 1 mile from our home? -We had a few queries regarding the house after moving in; light not working in the fridge etc and were told we contacted the wrong person as it should go through the maintenence team. Which makes perfect sense, but they might need to advise us of that in the beginning....-We had been in the house a few days when no payment plan for rent was set up. I contacted them and queried this and discovered that they should have actually sent us forms to set up these payments. How long could I have left it before they asked where their rent money was ?.....-We had our landlords contact details as they came a couple of times to collect post so we knew who they were/had met them. They contacted us privately one day to advise us the WHB had put their house ON THE MARKET by mistake, and to ignore anyone trying to view the house that weekend as they even had viewings booked!!!!......-Not knowing all the details but we know they messed the landlords around on numerous occasions and charged them extortionate fees for absolutely no service ?-We had an inspection booked around 8 months after being in the house. Pretty sure these should be every 6 months? I received a text from them 20 minutes before they were due to arrive cancelling the inspection. I'm a very tidy and clean person, but of course with an inspection due we cleaned and tidied to ensure everything was in order FOR WHAT? Plus the inspection was lunchtime on a Saturday so the whole day was pretty much wasted.-After the year was nearly up the landlord (and ourselves) were so extremely frustrated with every aspect of the process that they asked us if we wanted to carry on living in the house and go privately. WHB made it extremely difficult to end the contract even though it was just a 12 month contract. Even a third party company contacted us asking for arrangements of handing back keys and what state to leave the house in. It was also extremely difficult to get our deposit back even though the landlord said they had done inspections and were happy to released the deposit back to us. -Communication is diabolical. I have numerous emails as evidence of WHB hardly ever responding. The only time they would reply would be when the subject was regarding something that they wanted to know or benefitted from. When it came to extremely important information i.e returning my deposit they elongated the whole process to be as difficult as possible.
1/5
TrustpilotSequence & William H Brown Are Only Interested In One Thing: MONEY!
I think the general public need to be aware of one or two points, as Sequence are a corporate estate agency, with a number of parts of the jigsaw, including branches of William H. Brown, Fox & Sons, Mann & Co and a number of other estate agencies. They are NOT independent, and all are managed by Sequence. As such, Sequence have a management hierarchy, and where I am, in Norfolk, there is an Area Manager, then branch managers, and its hub seems to be Norwich, but then that is part of the lie, as the real HQ is somewhere else, in the UK.The first warning is that when you book a, so called,''Market Appraisal'' or in layman's terms a 'property valuation', you are then a target for money! The first thing you will be asked, in the office, is if you are moving on, and if so, do you have a mortgage? The reason for this, is they are armed with a Mortgage Broker, usually on site, and they want make sure ANY mortgage that is needed, is through them. Why? Commission! Simple! That means the agent gets a slice, and then the broker gets a slice, too. They are NOT independent brokers, either! They are selling products that Sequence have approved, and have obtained further commission on, for preferential selling! So, beware, as they will maintain they have access to the entire market, when they don't!So, let's say you have managed to avoid the mortgage meeting and then the day comes when the branch manager turns up to take a look, and value. He/she will say, at the end, that the contract is standard. And that it is 20 weeks, with 4 weeks notice! This is THE longets contract in the UK, and NOT necessary. It ties you in for far too long, and can and should be negotiated down to anything at all. Do NOT accept this. I would suggest 4 weeks, and a 1 week notice period or if not that, then 6 weeks and 2 weeks notice! They WANT to trap you, so you cannot leave.Next con is the commission. They are, in most provincial areas, 1.5% and this is for sole, and it is probably 2.0% for multi. Both are too high, and are the highest that agents charge. Most independents willc charge 1% sole, and even agree to that multi, but probably will start suggesting 1.5% multi.Then the REAL con; a registration fee! Yes, illegal in the UK to charge upfront fees to sell a property! They mask this by saying it is for professional photography, and that it also includes the EPC, which may be between £50 to £80 elsewhere, UNLESS you or the house has one, that is within a certain number of years old! They don't explain that, though... of course! The £225.00 fee for the photos, is a way of making you pay, thus trapping you to stay with them should you ever wish to give notice! You lose the cost! I suspect they try and keep copyright of the photos, too! They will claim you can get the entire cost back, on completion! Way, hey!!! BUT, only if you have taken out their other con; a conveyancing package, that will be around £1,400 or more, plus disbursements, and VAT extra! YOU can probably shop around and use a real solicitor, NOT a panel conveyancing team of out of area, out of touch, and staffed by 100 or more, who will give your sale 5 minutes a week, with any number of hands going over the file, with little knowledge! The complaints against this company are always about how the vendor or buyer cannot get through to ONE person on their case, and how they never return calls and that it is usually a different person evert time, etc. It is a sham! Avoid, at all costs, THEIR conveyancing, and also avod being trapped by their con, that you can claim the photo fees back, by taking out this over priced, useless deal!The whole lie is, ''We are a one stop shop'' and THAT is what they want you to believe, and sign up to, so they can make money out of you for a mortgage, for conveyancing (maybe sale AND purchase), for a wrongful registration fee, too. And remember they ALL get commission for each part of the process you take from them!YOU are the money, THEY are the takers of a slice from you, for paying for what they peddle! Selling the house, of course, makes them money, too. My advice: don't use them! But, if you do, get a proper commission, don't take out a mortgage, don't take out their conveyancing, don't agree to their photos, and fee, and certainly never agree to a long contract, and have a get out clause, too. Independents don't work like this, and there is only one reason Sequence do, and that is to make a lot of money, not just for selling a house, but for all the rest they want you to BELIEVE you need.And just to underline the dodgy way they behave, they turned up on my doorstep recently, whilst I was talking to someone in my garden. The interrupted us, asking how the sale was going! He said he was out and noticed the board, but then began to harass with a sales pitch! I told him to go away, and that what he was doing was illegal! The Onbudsman needs to deal with these crooks!
1/5
TrustpilotRacist
Okay I can't leave a one star but William H brown Pinxton are racist, unprofessional, and the lady called Jo fowler is the worst I have seen, I can't say avoid because it will be an understatement but hell no am I even advising any of my friends to buy or even call any estate agents called William H brown.We could not purchase a property because of their level of racism and its very disgusting. I just can't fathom to give the details cos their disgusting level of communication left my wife crying for days. Please please look else where...
1/5
TrustpilotNorwich branch dreadful
Join a tenant's union and read up on tenant's rights before renting from this hopeless company. Norwich branch dreadful. Absolutely incompetent company, palmed our renting off to the hopeless 'Sequence' sub-company. Took two months to return the non-disputed portion of our deposit due to their shocking incompetence.
1/5
TrustpilotAvoid at all costs, bunch of cowboys
Absolute waste of time, full of lies never get back to you and are total chancers. I would never recommend than to anyone they didn’t have a clue about nothing and it seemed as though I was doing there jobs for them. I feel sorry for the people that are using them to sell there houses as the staff have no interest what so ever, they turn up to to viewings and forget the keys they re arrange ad don’t bother showing up. It’s a shame that the builders had to give them anything as they done nothing to sell the house just listed it online. I ended up meeting the developer himself in the end who was a lovely person and very helpful unlike William h brown
1/5
TrustpilotThe worst estate agents in town
The worst estate agents in town. I have dealt with 3 to 4 local companies before but by far the worst experience has to be with William H Brown. Selling my house was a total nightmare with them from start to finish. The number of incidents was comical. To list a few of the issues. Losing my house key... Cancelling a number of viewings due to dodgy reasons.... Claiming never have to received my messages.... Claiming that my messages were going to spam.... A total joke of a company.Would never ever deal with them.
1/5
TrustpilotWorst experience of an estate agent…
Worst experience of an estate agent ever. I have bought and sold 8 houses And 1 building plot in the past 35 yrs. William H Brown are the worst I have ever come across. First, I was asked to pay £200 plus for someone to take photos of my property I have never had to pay for this in the past it has always been included in the contract. (But never mind I paid the £200 plus) Then when I was shown the photos I was shocked and opted to use some of my own photos I had of my house. This took about 3 weeks to resolve. Then the description of the floor plan was not correct I informed them of this on several occasions but they never put this matter right. At this time I ask them to cancel my contract but was told I was too late as the cooling-off time was finished. I then ask for an advertising board to be put in my front garden but this never happened either. I then phoned them 2 weeks before my contract was due to finish to let them know I did not wish to continue after my contract ended but was told I had to give them a 1-month notice from the date of my contract ends. (So this I did) Today I was just browsing the property market only to find that my property had been removed from there page along with the Rightmove advert. When I called them I was told that the lockdown must have caused an error with the computers (LOL) and that my property should have been on Rightmove and also on their page. Within 30 minutes my house was back on with both Rightmove and William H Brown. However, when checking this afternoon I noticed it had been removed once again from Rightmove. After my final email, they agreed to cancel my contract with immediate effect. So please be warned to stay clear if not you will waste between 12 to 20 weeks. Oh yes we did not have any viewings
2/5
TrustpilotNot telling about fees, keeping deposit for long time
Last year I was quite desperate to rent a 3 bed house within a month and all available in the are were with William H Brown.I liked the property so I paid the fees (equaling to nearly a month's rent) and was sure that all that was left to pay was the deposit and rent bit when I came back to sign the agreement I was told that I had to pay extra for the property check by 3rd party, which turned out to be part of William H Brown. When I refused I was told that I would lose the fees paid so far.When I moved in I got the details of the energy suppliers from the landlord but I started getting phonecards from completely different supplier. They said that the agency switched to them and I had to pay them. They were blocking my switching process stating that they had to finish their switch first and it took them 3 months. I paid £120 more than I was would paid with any different supplier for the electricity and gas. After they finally let me switch I was paying £47 a month less.Of course when I called William H Brown they said that they had right to do it and didn't have to let me know.I moved out of the property on 02/04/20. I agreed with landlord for some deductions to be made on 20/04/20 and the email was sent to the agency straight away. It is 19/05/20 and I still haven't received my deposit and they do not answer the phone :/Summarising:- they do not tell you about all the fees- they change the supplier without letting you know to the most expensive one- they do not release your deposit within reasonable time- they are nice when you come to them first time but when you phone them they want to get rid of you quickly being rather not nice and not interested in helping you.
1/5
GoogleI do not recommend the lettings department I rented an overpriced room with black mould, which caused me long term health issues and nothing was done by them to fix the issue. Only by countless emails and phone calls by me demanding a change, they only offered to knock £50 of my rent for one month. Disgraceful. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS FOR STUDENTS!
1/5
TrustpilotSeldom bother to respond to phone calls, messages or emails
Have tried to deal with 3 different branches of this company when buying properties (their branches seem to cover very small areas in the same vicinity) and all of them just do not bother to reply to messages, phone calls and emails. We now don't bother going any further if we see attractive properties to purchase. So much easier to deal with responsive agents.
1/5
TrustpilotAvoid at all costs
CLACTON ON SEAWould avoid letting from WHBrown at all costs. Dishonest, unhelpful, with a clear lack of communication between agents and tenants. Many calls and complaints, and a year down the line, nothing had been addressed or fixed. Each time you contact the agent it seems a different person was responsible for dealing with tenants. Customer/tenant satisfaction is not a priority for the agents at all, it seems as long as the rent is paid, they’re quite happy to conveniently forget about you.All in all, I wouldn’t trust them to manage my sock drawer.
5/5
TrustpilotHighly recommended
We sold our property with William H Brown in Hertfordshire in April 2019, I cannot praise James and Dan highly enough for their professional approach from the beginning which was reassuring and greatly appreciated. They were always able to answer any questions etc that we had of which there were many. During the course of our sale we had contact with all the members of staff in this branch who worked very hard to complete a successful sale on our behalf, we are very grateful for their hardworking and professional approach, I would have no hesitation in recommending them to anyone.
1/5
TrustpilotDO NO USE WILLIAM H BROWN - WORSE AGENTS
The worse letting agents around. I am a neighbour to a property that William H Brown manage in Norwich. Their tenants have caused a sewage block and an overflow into the back garden and communal space. We are 8 weeks since we made the initial complaint and still nothing has been done! That are appalling, they do not care, I would never go through William H Brown for either letting or purchasing a property. The Norwich office in particular the property manager Bradley Adams and his line manager Beckie Varnon should be ashamed of their sheer lack of incompetence, disregard to the problem and zero communication. DO NOT USE WILLIAM H BROWN.
Where the same review appears twice we show it once. We leave out reviews that name another agent or another of the brand's offices.
Tell us what you need and we'll put you in touch. William H Brown Auction Norwich hasn't joined The Trusted Agent yet, so we'll pass your enquiry to them or to up to three other top-rated agents near Norwich.
