Key Properties - Derby

Julian W.

I have been working with Key Properties for a number of years and overall, my experience has been very positive.

From the outset, communication has been brilliant, and the team has been very professional. They handled the marketing of my property efficiently, and I was pleased with the quality of tenants they sourced. The referencing and tenancy agreements were managed smoothly, with minimal input required from my end.

Overall, I would recommend them to other landlords. They offer great value in terms of service and peace of mind for property owners.

Jesse A.

Avoid this company, try as much as possible to avoid them. Very unprofessional staff. They’ll try all ways and means to not repay your deposit to you as well. Too many terrible experiences over the past 4 years. They are not helpful, and will not respond to you if anything goes wrong in the house. I had a bathroom that had a leak in one of the pipes, they sent a plumber after how many weeks, and then told the plumber to block access of water through that pipe and call it a day as a “solution”. Which meant no water flowing in that bathroom which was for visitors mainly. When I asked, they said I have an ensuite so my visitors could use that and they won’t fix the broken leak. I can go on and on. Just avoid them. There are so many great agencies out there.

Timi G.

I have been with Key Properties for just over 2 years now. They were welcoming and helpful in finding a good property for me, even though I was a student at the time. They were flexible and understanding during applications and have remained that way throughout the two years of tenancy.

Key Properties have always been very accomodating of any needs I had over the two years and really respect you as a tenant when dealing with your privacy, scheduling appointments for repairs/inspections, and contract changes. With the experiences, I have had over the last 4 years of renting, this respect has been the exception not the norm from other letting agents and that is why I felt so comfortable letting from Key Properties.

If I would not be moving away, I would have happily stayed with Key Properties for longer.

A great all-around letting agent, with a quality experience for their customers at heart.

Thomas S.

Keyproperties were communicative on house issues, and their responses were fairly quick. That's where the positives end.

Viewing their properties, even with ample time before another university term, it's clear that they manage absolute dumpsters. We had weeks of viewings our first time, took the best of a bad bunch. Second time round, there were truly no good places available.

When we moved out, it's clear they either are happy letting landlords rinse you for your deposit, or have a deal with a local cleaning company. They gave us the option to pay an extra £120 for cleaning on moving out, or do it ourselves. We opted on moving out to do the cleaning ourselves, and left the house much much cleaner than we found it. Mold was all removed, mopped, vacuumed, all furniture was moved and cleaned behind. Drawers, cupboards, wardrobes emptied and wiped. After, we even freshened it with an air freshener and left.

Landlord disputed it and cost us £120 from our deposit for "cleaning fees". Funny how it's the exact same fee as the cleaning charge offered previously?

When asked for details, such as "what needs cleaning, can we have an itemised list of costs?", they didn't explain further and gave us the option to dispute it through the court system. As a group of people not with time, energy, or motivation to dispute this with them, we took the loss.

Keyproperties, like unfortunately many other letting agents, enjoy seeing the deposit as a tip jar that they can allow the landlord to dip their hand into, rather than genuine financial protection. And it's clear from their viewings, that the deposit isn't used to fix up properties and maintain them properly, and instead used to line the pockets of landlords while accomodation standards are left by the wayside.

Wouldn't recommend them again, highly unprofessional.

JB R.

I cannot recommend Key Properties highly enough. We have used a few different agencies in Derby, but Key Properties have been by far the best agent. They are extremely organised, professional and reliable. Their communication is excellent and they are always on hand to address queries and concerns promptly, no matter how small.

Afrodite K.

I've been with them for 2 years now and they don't seem to dissapoint. Even though they have multiple properties to manage, they always have time for each individual.
They are sensible people with whom you can have a conversation with and talk about any concerns or issues or they can simply help you with new properties, whatever you require really.
I would highly recommend them for your student and non student letting needs. As I have not bought a house, I don't have a say on that aspect of the company, but I imagine they would be spectacular there as well.
If you are looking for a reliable company, I would highly recommend then

Ben G.

This agency provided one of the worst experiences in renting I've ever encountered. No professionalism or organisation to be heard of, extremely.hard to get a hold of when you have an issue and just awful at communication when you manage to get through.

Managed by a "man" named Mark, be warned, this "man" will attempt to steal every penny you own regardless of whether it is unlawful or not. It doesn't care if it breaks its own tenancy agreement, it will rinse you for everything you've got. I genuinely don't understand how it continues to function undrr the guise of a person, it must be due to it's sheer lack of conscious.

Do not rent from these "people", they don't care about you or your home, they just see you as nothing more than a cash cow to truly drain dry.

Oliver G.

Where do I begin? I rented through key properties for the last two years and I can’t seem to understand how they sleep at night. Any issue with the property has to go directly through them in which they will take several days to respond to any issue we had with the property.

- we spent 5 weeks in Jan/Feb (winter) without a working boiler, we had to purchase our own heaters in this time in which skyrocketed the electricity for those months. We still had to pay rent for this time even though the property was unliveable.

- mould. They deal with mould by painting over it before viewings, leading to the mould to grow back thicker and faster, absolutely revolting.

-water through light. During a storm I messaged them explaining that water was pouring out of my light bulb which was on at the time due to structural damage to the roof. THEY DIDNT EVEN REPLY...

- leak. We had a leak under our sink, once again, days to respond, weeks to fix. By this time the leak extended to under the floorboards bubbling up the wood, ruining the flooring. Once the landlord received his property back he threatened to take us to small claims do to the “destruction” of his property. This was all entirely Key Properties fault for not caring or responding to genuine concerns and issues with the property we updated them with.

After all this, we STILL lost 3/4s of our deposit.

If you can, avoid using this estate agents. They are worse than Humphrey’s believe it or not.