John D Wood & Co. Reviews 

I rented this apartment for a two-month stay. It was a disappointment.

Throughout the stay, there were consistent delays in resolving basic matters. Requests often went unanswered and required multiple follow-ups.
You should be warned that there is construction in the building next door. The agency and landlord did not disclose this.

Most concerningly, despite having departed the apartment months ago and received a report from them that everything was left in great condition, we have still not received the security deposit. It seems that their delays may not have just been bad service but rather bad faith.

John D WOOD Battersea Park Road
Disingenuous and incompetent.
Having engaged JDW to sell a property in Battersea, they were full of promises and , quite frankly, untruths!
The Property attracted a buyer quite quickly, and we were assured that the purchaser wanted to complete within a few weeks- 6 .
We instructed Solicitors, and they started the work. After being repeatedly assured by JDW that the purchaser was very keen to get the sale completed, after a number of weeks I phoned my Solicitor to ask progress. A phone call was made to the Purchasers Solicitor by ours, and She was told that the fees for searches had not even been paid! No work hard been done.
We cancelled the sale, and received a bill for over £2,000 to cover the work involved that we had asked to be undertaken.
Lazy, incompetent, doesn't even come close to how we feel about JDW

Can Gelirli and his team at the Belgravia Office gave been outstanding in organising and selling our flat in Pimlico. Thank you Cam for all your help and effort.
Ivan

I let 2 properties through J D Wood & Co letting team in Belgravia, London SW1V since 2024. Over time the quality of services and customer care, accounting has plummeted. Rental statements are issued up to 7 days late; random fees are deducted, for example I got charged fees usually applied to overseas landlords although JDW have all my documents proving I am British, live in Britain etc. In addition although I negotiated clear cut service contract with JDW, they still apply randomly irregular fees opted out of. Then in 2024/2025 they restructured and their system went crazy with shifting the responsibility away from the local office I dealt with. I got so frustrated I terminated their agency. On the marketing side their letting team manager offered to visit and discuss potential letting of a property I have in Pimlico. Next thing I discovered that he went ahead and advertised the property to let without my approval. He even used other agents floor plans and pictures in the add! He was confronted after I was told about the advertisement by another local agent. JDW withdrew the advertisement and I have refused to deal with them since.

Terrible experience with the move-out process. Our contract states the deposit must be returned within 10 days. It has been over 20 days and John D Wood still refuse to release it because the landlord "hasn't replied."

They are completely passive and take no responsibility for enforcing the contract they signed. We are now having to fight for our deposit through the TDS. Unprofessional and unhelpful.

As a landlord, the Lettings Support team at the Docklands & City branch genuinely exceeded my expectations. Bryan Norton Crail in particular was brilliant in a) securing a buildings insurance claim for a leaking pipe and b) holding the management company to account and getting them to accept responsibility.

I wish that I read the reviews prior to my dealings with this agent. I’ve been a landlord for decades, have mostly stayed with the same company for a very long period, any issues were always resolved promptly and I felt that my custom was important.
Having engaged JWD for a very short time, I’m bitterly regretting my decision. Before tenants were found, I stipulated that the I’ve always directly seen to any issues arising from the tenants regarding the property, that I engage my own contractors. But lo and behold, JDW has taken a “FLOAT “ from the rent received. It’s not possible to contact the person responsible as they only have “SKELETON “ staff working!!
Since my engagement with the agency, having spoken with a few people, it transpired that there are quite a few disgruntled people like me who find that the agency doesn’t provide an adequate service.

Our property was already on the market when we met James Setright and although it was too late to appoint them, James provided clear and comprehensive advice on issues we were having with the process

I had a great experience with Bryan Norton Crail during my tenancy with John D Wood. He was always professional, responsive, and genuinely helpful throughout my time at the property. Bryan consistently communicated clearly and handled every enquiry with care and efficiency.

I really appreciated his support and the smooth service provided from start to finish.
Highly recommended.

1 star is too much for them. They are paid to manage a rental property & significantly failed to do so. Their breaches of contract include:
1: Letting safety certification (electrical)expire despite being authorised to act 8 weeks previously.
2: Never performing the annual inspections or reporting on the property
3: Failing to send financial reports or accounts for their charges
4: Extremely poor negotiators
5: Failed to report when a tenant was in arears (3 months in arears)
5: Failed to do anything about the arears beyond a few emails- not even to visit the property.
6: Instructed formally by email to send a section 8 eviction notice. A section 21 was sent instead.
7: Refusing to call back or pick up the phone -always in meetings unless I gave a false name when they were oddly available!
I am currently seeking legal advice

Extremely Unprofessional and Disrespectful Experience with Munroe Graham

I had one of the most frustrating experiences with Munroe Graham. I viewed a property and placed an offer within two hours. My offer was accepted the same afternoon, and I immediately transferred a holding deposit.

The next day, the agent became practically unreachable — I had to keep calling and texting just to get any updates. I was told there were some “issues with the landlord” but that everything was sorted and not to worry. Despite those reassurances, I was never sent a tenancy agreement, even though I was supposed to move in the following week.

On the third day, after I had already turned down other offers based on their word, I received an email — not even a phone call — telling me the deal was off and that my money would be refunded. The reason given was that the landlord had fallen ill, which makes little sense since the property was empty when I viewed it.

Even if that were true, the lack of professionalism was shocking. There was no respect, no communication, and no accountability throughout the process. I would strongly advise anyone to think twice before dealing with Munroe Graham.

I have a property which is fully managed by JohnDWoods , they couldn't renew my contract due to sick leave of their employee , they cant solve my problem I have to reach to tenant by myself and trying to solve the issues , 20 days pasts the contract end date .

Our experience with John D Wood was frustrating and stressful. We dealt with four different agents during our tenancy, and none resolved any issues. The checkout process was the worst - we moved out in April, but our checkout report took 10 days, and despite a professional clean, the landlord conducted another and tried to charge us.

Communication was terrible. Calls went unanswered, promised call backs never came, and replies took weeks. Our damage deposit wasn’t released for four months, forcing us to go through the Tenancy Deposit Scheme to recover it. Thankfully, we eventually received all of our money back.

While we got our deposit in the end, the whole process was unnecessarily difficult. Expect poor communication, lack of support, and unhelpful agents.

I’ve called multiple times regarding a property and was repeatedly told I’d receive a call back either by end of day or the next working day. This has never happened. I even tried submitting an enquiry through Rightmove, but nothing would go through.

It’s honestly ridiculous — either don’t promise to call back, or live up to the expectations you’ve set yourself. The lack of basic communication is highly unprofessional and very disappointing.

Waste of time. Never responded to my email enquiries or my telephone enquiries. Would not waste my time.

Our sale of a property in Surbiton was complicated by the fact that everything had to be managed from overseas. We were fortunate in being directed to John D. Wood and Co at the Surbiton branch, where we have nothing but praise for the professionalism and efficiency of Luke Dwyer and Theo Harding. There were many issues which caused delays in the process of this sale, but at all times Luke was quick to be in touch and to advise on the way forward. Although we did not meet in person, we very much appreciated his reassuring manner as we negotiated both legal and practical setbacks.

Avoid this company at all costs!!!

I had to chase Ben German multiple times to prepare a basic tenancy agreement after converting our sale into a rental. Although the urgency was made clear to him, he could not have cared less and cost us around £1000 as a result. His response when we chased him was he was “doing us a favour”. I thought he was (politely) being asked to do his job. Perhaps the Head of Lettings was a volunteer…

Rental payments were excessively delayed by their accounts team without reason or explanation; the tenants had paid on time. No statements were issued and I spend months chasing for these.

I complained to their Area Manager, Emlyn. Initially, we had a productive conversation. However, he later went back on the majority of what he said. He became rude, condescending and had a total lack of interest in the stress his actions have caused. Finally he resorted to threats.

As a tenant who has had John D Wood as my lettings management for the last 6 years I can say that they are absolutely awful. They don't reply to emails, don't take responsibility, don't put out of office emails on so you can't get anything urgent done. I would never use them.

Claire and Karl from the Sales team at the Canary Wharf branch of John D Wood both provided excellent support despite slow solicitors on both sides. It required a lot of perseverance!

They are the worst letting agent we’ve ever dealt with, do not rent or buy with this company, complete incompetence at all levels of management. They will cost you money, time, stress & potentially your health, it is not worth it! When we moved out we also recieved our deposit back in full just for clarity. (Though it took much longer than it should have)

When we moved in we discovered the flat had no ventilation in the bathroom (which is a legal requirement under Homes for Habitability Act 2018 and does not comply with building regulations 2010) no windows or extractor fan, just a fan heater covering a hole where the extractor should be. We raised this and a few other repair issues. In the entire 6 months we lived there (we were evicted due to the landlord wanting to sell - through another agency as he clearly is not happy with John D Woods' service.) they fixed 1 issue.. the washing machine-the least urgent. We spent our entire 6 months there constantly stressed trying to sort this and other issues with J D Wood but they did absolutely nothing.

We had only one set of keys between us for the first 8 days.
The shower leaked a huge puddle onto the floor every time we showered.
We didn’t have all the needed information for our move in. Not given the location of the bins or the meter readings locations. Then given a wrong location for bins and told we shouldn’t need to take meter readings..

We made an official complaint on 6th December.

We (albeit too late) contacted the council & they came to visit, they were horrified. They drew up a report and submitted a preliminary works order for works to be carried out; mentioning the damp and mould.
We only didn’t contact the council sooner because we hoped J D Wood would fix these issues, what fools we were. Their constant stalling tactics, asking us for photos, claiming they’re still waiting on the landlord to approve the works, only to find the manager George said the landlord said he’d 'already approved several of the works (albeit 4 months in) and why hadn’t they been done?'

We had to pay 6 months rent up front so cash flow to sort the repairs was not the issue. We'd sent emails to contractors and then heard nothing from J D Wood. Eventually when a new contractor came out to the property he gave a quote to them for around £4000. The bathroom and kitchen are internal without any windows or extractors for ventilation. This contractor, planned to knock out through the building to put in a ventilation shaft, but did not explore the hole in the wall we had previously sent videos of to J D Wood. we explained all we thought had to be done was replace the fan heater on the wall with an extract unit as the ventilation shaft was already there.
J D Wood claimed they needed to get permission from the freehold owner for wider works, however this isn't true as they could simply replace the fan heater with an extractor. hence no building works and £200. No one from J D Wood ever came to look at the vent until finally the area manager came (after our eviction) with his preferred contractor who agreed simply an extractor unit would work & cost no more than £200.

They fully ignored our emails when they couldn’t be bothered to do something.

The Ombudsman also awarded us £300 from John D Wood for their negligence.

I’m sure they’ll to reply with their copy and paste message asking us to email the details but I’ve included most here so if you’re reading this 'John D Wood Person' don’t bother. If this review saves even one person from the renting hell we suffered with them then it’s worth the time writing it. This is the most incompetent group of people at their jobs. We are so happy we will never have to deal with any of these people again. Already the new management at our new rental have been infinitely more helpful and proactive. Also I never leave reviews and we want to never think about this again but I felt this review was important, I would not wish this stress on anyone.