A London agent has denied claims that it has links to firms that have previously been expelled by The Property Ombudsman (TPO).
Trustpilot and Google reviews for Barrons London claim tenants and staff have been transferred from Flintons – an agency expelled by TPO last week.
Barrons London has a rating of two stars out of five on Google reviews, with a number of reviews raising links with Flintons.
A one-star review from a month ago said: “They are from Flintons with new ‘brand’ which in my opinion says a lot.”
Flintons has a chequered history as the agent, based in Mile End, east London, was previously the subject of a BBC investigation that accused it of charging for viewings.
It had also mysteriously setup next door to Citiside Properties, just days after the latter had been expelled from TPO.
Companies House documents show Mohammed Moynul Haque, a previous director of Citiside Properties was once a director of a business called Supporting Care North East Branch between October 2018 and October 2019.
Barrons London majority shareholder and director Razaur Rahman is also listed as a director of Supporting Care North East Branch, which he joined in December 2018.
Aldgate-based Barrons London was incorporated in May 2019 and describes itself as “the new estate agent.”
Barrons London displays logos for the UK Association of Lettings Agents and TPO and EYE has confirmed its membership of these bodies.
It has eight properties to let on Rightmove.
EYE also asked Barrons London for a response about the links with Flintons.
We received an email from Abu K Shah, which said: “We confirm that Mohammed Haque is not involved with our agency Barrons London Ltd.
“Mr Haque is known to our director Razaur Rahman through Supporting Care. This link helped us secure the lease to our agency premises in May 2019.
“We should like to make clear that no staff were transferred from the agency Flintons to Barrons. We recruited one staff member who did work for Flintons previously. This was through our usual recruitment process and based on their experience of the local property market.
“The Trustpilot reviews to which you refer was not known to us until they were brought to our attention through your email.
“We are unable to comment why a link has been drawn between Barrons and Flintons other than we have received a few properties from landlords who had previously rented through Flintons as presumably have other agents.”
Interesting header note added to the Flintons Trustpilot page:
“31 March 2020
Dear Trustpilot users, Our customised software has discovered a large number of fake reviews on this domain and we’ve removed them.
The integrity of our community is something we take very seriously. We’ll therefore continue our efforts to safeguard the integrity of the platform, and we’ll inform our users when we uncover attempts of misuse.”
Now THAT’S a first!
But who knows – one day we may see it again… somewhere…
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Just a little confused here – ‘Barrons’ have a Trustscore (never has a word been so utterly inappropriate but that’s another song for another day…) of 2.8 – or ‘three stars’ on their header. Yet their reviews are 2x 1-star and 1x 2-star.
How then can they score an average of THREE??
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“Barrons London displays logos for the UK Association of Lettings Agents and TPO and EYE has confirmed its membership of these bodies.”
Barrons London also display the logo for PRS – but unless I’m doing something wrong, a search on the Property Redress Scheme website indicates they are not Members…
…funny, that.
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Good job we have robust legal and regulatory overlords to ensure those playing the system and leaving a trail of misery are brought to book…. Oh wait….
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