Mainstay Group Reviews 

1 star is too many for these fools. They are just an awful, awful company. Rude, bureaucratic, no customer service, greedy and generally incompetent. Total rip off in terms of pricing, building work and admin fees

I am a Real Estate professional of 20+ years and I have never experienced such poor follow up. I have been trying to reach Raqual for a call back for three days in reference to a listing, that my client was interested in Making an offer on, and all I get is an automated message to text or send an email for someone else to respond to. Very dissapointing to say the least…I also spoke to a so called assistant who tried to reach out and got the same response. If I dealt with co-broke agents like this, I would be out of the business. I always do my best to be positive and respectful to other professional in every way, but I feel the need to voice my opinion here for the way I have been treated.I can respect being busy, but our business is about follow up and letting your clients and co-broke agents know that they are important and respected!!!

D

Run when you see a property listed by mainstay brokerage. They are running some kind of scam. In particular the agent is Raquel Littlejohn.

In 2023 Mainstay Group contacted all the leaseholders resident at our FirstPort managed property concerning the need to fill in and return a Leaseholder Certificate form.
The form they sent was not the form shown on the government website.
I completed a form dowloaded from the government website and sent it off by recorded delivery.
Some time later I, along with all the resident leaseholders, received a second letter from Mainstay Group saying that they had not received our completed forms.
I emailed them attaching photos of proof of posting and proof of delivery.
They acknowledged receipt of my completed form.
Any resident leaseholders who did not have proof of posting and proof of delivery - ?

This review is written in retrospect because unfortunately Mainstay are now part of First Port.
I lived in Fulford Place York for years with no problems. Mainstay were excellent, services good, annual meetings with residents etc.
Since they were taken over by First Port everything changed, read First Port reviews and you'll see what I mean.

Currently trying to purchase a property that is managed by Mainstay Group/FirstPort and my solicitor has been chasing the maintence pack for 5 weeks!! This has held up our purchase and we are currently homeless as we had to let our sale complete otherwise our buyers would have pulled out!

I attended three interviews for jobs with this company and never heard back about any of them. I understand this with just applications but to not hear after interview is frankly rude.

if that is the way they treat people I could not in good conscience recommend them for anything.

Absolutely terrible service. Trying and failing miserably to transfer tenancy of the small part of land outside my property whilst I sell my house.
Never answer the phone.
Never answer emails to myself or solicitor.
About to lose my house purchase and sale due to incompetence.
Whole process is meant to take max. 15 days - we haven’t even heard back from them in twice the amount of time.

Sue-Ann Stirton from the Company Secretarial Services team is very dedicated, and endeavoured to achieve the right result for us in relation to an issue we faced. Thank you once again Sue-Ann.

Terrible service with my property maintenance.

Have been renting with them for a year. The worst company ever. They ignore all the emails, don't pick up the phone (or say that "everyone is at the meeting"), refuse to deal with the maintenance things, and delay the return of the deposit. Very unpleasant staff members - particularly Jemma Minett (very unhelpful and the most evasive "senior" staff member).

Avoid at all costs. Now they are called Campions but nothing has changed (the same staff, the same approach)

The service was available all through the day, the person at the officebwere always polite. Loved that the parcels got delivered without being physically present.

I really appreciate for Soufiane assistance as always, he is very friendly & polite, always help residents with smiling

Terrible property management company, the people will basically lie to the residents. They company merged with First Port, avoid at all cost!

manage the building reasonably well and listen to feedback.

Mainstay are so bad. I don't understand how they are allowed to legally operate.
The ground rent for our property is £150 per year with them when locally its about £10. Also whilst moving home they demand £120 just to give the solicitor some pointless information.
As others have mentioned, they are quick to send demanding letters for payments and have no problem issuing threats to recover money.
I will never move to a property that is managed for ground rent by Mainstay again.

I found Mainstay to be helpful and very responsive. They helped me understand the process when dealing with a Deed of Variation for ground rent. In particular Molly Wood and Carole Martin are both very professional and a credit to Mainstay.

I recently had the opportunity to engage with the operator of my flat while settling a service charge, and I must say that the experience was nothing short of exceptional. From start to finish, the operator displayed a high level of professionalism, efficiency, and outstanding customer service. Thanks Sipho!

Terrible, I would ensure I never live somewhere managed by them ever again. No response ever, only comms are unsubstantiated demands for money, worse being a demand for money relating to a flat years before I had even owned my flat in the complex, which I later found out hae not been an authorised communication, radio silence on any refund though. Avoid at all costs

Mainstay managed our apartment block until it went over to FirstPort within the last year. The residents asked for a road gully to be unblocked because it had got silted up due to lack of routine maintenance. When we received our year end audit of accounts we were charged over £900+ for this work. We queried this and they could only produce a bill for a camera survey for just over £200 which was completely Unnecessary. That’s all it needed was a gully gulper costing about £250. When challenged they could not offer an explanation for this. I would suggest to everyone that you ask to see quotations for all work prior to it being carried out and check your year end accounts. A guide is to allow £150/man per day plus materials and VAT.