I agree to use an agency next time, but dont fall for their spiel about letting them MANAGE the property for you. This is the letting agents way of making even more money from you, as the tenant can call the agent for every minor thing, and you pay for their maintenance person to come out, assess, fit a screw/bulb, order a part, etc. Naturally the agency gets a good commission on such "repairs". Tenants think they wont have to do anything themselves, and will just call the maintenance department for every little thing, and it will cost you dearly. Really, some tenants cant even screw in a lightbulb and will think of nothing to call out maintenance to look at the "faulty" light.
A couple of examples:
The pull out sofa bed (Ikea Hemnes) was wonky a year or so into the tenancy, claimed tenant, agency sent out a man to look, decide a screw had come lose, go to the builders yard, return with a replacement screw, and I paid £40 per hour plus vat plus cost of a screw, pennies.
Equally when a screw came lose on a drawer, in a chest of drawers. Impossible for tenant to just screw it in herself, maybe dab a little glue to make it stick. Much easier to pick up the phone and call for maintenance.
Suddenly a shelf in the fridge was just broken, and agency decided this was wear and tear and for me to replace, and by the time the maintenance person had been to assess, decide what part he needed ordering, I had to fork out nearly the cost of a new fridge.
The agency having been persuaded by the tenant, that the oven needed a deep clean a month after new tenant moved in, and charged me £50 for that. They said the tenant had not cleaned her oven in a month as she did not realize that SHE had to do it, but if the landlord (me) paid for it to be cleaned ONCE to get the grime out, then she would continue cleaning the oven. (Needless to say we had to scrap that cooker when this tenant eventually did a runner, leaving gas and electricity unpaid). I put my foot down on new paving stones, and a regular gardener for her, it was in her contract that upkeep of garden was her responsibility. My mistake, it would have cost me less to have the lawn mowed once a month, rather than letting it grow wild over a 2 year period.
From my experience, Foxton is terrible if you are a landlord, they just want to fleece you all ways possible on tenants whims, thats who I used when I was a landlord. As a tenant, my landlord used Featherstone Leigh, and they were hardball, looking after the landlords interest (not the tenant) to the point of almost trying to defraud us our deposit by insisting that we had made serious damage to the house (luckily photos we took on moving in date showed the damage was already there, and also visible in their own old marketing materials for the property, they also insisted the property had been professionally deep cleaned prior to us moving in, while it was in fact so filthy that landlord provided a cleaner to come and help me, and together we spent the full day cleaning grime. They wanted to charge me £900 for professional cleaners, but the contract said the property should be left in equal state as found, so I got the same cleaner and we cleaned it together, it could not be more equal....They did not back down until I showed them the receipt from the cleaner from the beginning of the tenancy)
So, find an agency who will be having YOUR back, not the tenants. Find yourself an agency like Featherstone Leigh, not Foxtons, if you are a landlord.....
As a landlord, I have had tenants, and my agency trying it on. As a tenant, I have had the landlord and the agency trying it on. Both can be as bad as eachother.