FirstPort Scotland Reviews 

Phoned up and my query was solved quickly with help from Robert.

Robert was very helpful when dealing with queries: great customer service.

Robert has made everything seamless and hassle free. Credit to the company. No chasing him or need to follow up.

The worst company ever - our development sacked them for completely ignoring work required and not undertaking professional inspections.
So far after more than 8 months they have not refunded all of the floats to the residents They tell us that they have failed to collect payments due from people in the development and have not enough money to pay the.floats.
Avoid them at all costs Have a look at the MPs and questions discussed in parliament who are investigating them,
First Port are no good .

I received outstanding customer service from Robert, he helped resolve all my queries immediately and helped me set up my account in a way I wasn’t aware I could. This is incredibly helpful to me and takes the stress away from managing my account. He was fantastic and really lovely to deal with. Thank you Robert :)

Consistent lack of any sort of care of management of the site my Mum lives on. It’s turned from a lovely place to a horrible one since Firstport took over. They charge huge management fees and do next to nothing. When you bring up issues to them they ignore your emails or eventually reply with a generic reply that doesn’t actually answer anything you said to them. It’s constantly “we understand”, “we’re sorry”, “this will be fixed”, but no timelines or commitments are given and things almost never get fixed. One of the worst companies I have ever had the misfortune of interacting with.

I fell victim to First Port Scotland’s bullying and harassing tactics recently. The matter involved repairs done to a garage complex and originated with a company that First Port bought over. The dispute had been resolved with the original company but after the acquisition First Port refused to honour the agreement. I wrote a clear statement of what had happened backed up by the figures involved but this was to no avail. This happened during a period of illness and when the final intimidating correspondence arrived I was in no state to fight and reluctantly paid them. If you can avoid dealing with First Port Scotland do so. My experience was a company who are uncaring and unprincipled.

Report on the new heater installation

In January 2025, new heaters were installed throughout our development. This work was organized by FirstPort. This installation has now gone through its first winter.

FirstPort appeared to follow their own rules of thumb.

First, they get a salesperson from one of the manufacturers to visit the development. They are then largely guided by what that person offers.

Second, every existing heater had to be replaced with a new heater regardless of the actual requirement for heat.

Third, every space had to have a heater which could work whether it ever switched on or not was beside the point.

15 months on the heaters work well, as they should because they were top of the range expensive heaters. The heaters have sophisticated electronic controls. The desired temperature can be set on them and the times at which the heaters switch on can be programmed in. Thus, the heaters can operate efficiently and minimize the use of electricity. This does not refer to their cost effectiveness. At the time I estimated we could have saved about 40% on the cost of buying the heaters by choosing more cost-effective alternatives. FirstPort did not appear to attach any level of importance to this aspect of the matter and appeared to be guided by what the salesperson recommended.

The heaters that were positioned in the middle of corridors on floors one to four, inclusive, never switch on. From the day of installation, they were effectively switched off. It is obvious that the cost of these heaters was completely unnecessary. It was FirstPort’s intention to install two of these heaters in the middle of each corridor, but after some persuasion, they compromised and only installed one. Thus, the wasted expenditure was reduced.

The lessons to be learned are that if the manufacturers' sale representative and the installation team do their jobs correctly, you will possibly get an effective installation. What you may not get is a cost-effective installation. FirstPort and the salesperson may not apply a professional approach to the design of the system. Some heaters may be unnecessary. Little or no regard is given to the cost effectiveness of the choices that are made, and FirstPort appears to accept whatever the sales representative offers.

This is in contrast to what FirstPort offers on their main web site where they say that their property management service offers the right solutions for their development.
FirstPort may have applied he same methods in other developments. If this is the case then these developments may also have suffered excessive costs.

As a group of diligent tenants we weren't impressed with First Port, so moved to new factors. First Port withheld our float (£250 per household) for 4 1/2 months to date, for no reason. Despite many emails to First Port, highlighting their legal responsibility to return float within 3 months, they still have not refunded our float. Some weeks they say they have transferred the money and then never do. Beware. Glad to have left First Port.

Dreadful company. Raised cases on the portal. No straight answers. Over 6 months and the case closed with still no answers. Held back excess insurance premium charge but paid rest of the invoice as excess had gone up over 4 times the amount of previous one and enquired as to why and they threatened me with debt collectors even though nobody could give an answer as to why except to say it was the excess insurance. Also reported fault with door. Not working properly 5 times over 6 months. They have charged us for every visit even though it’s not hard to work out that if the door was mended properly the first time this would not have kept happening. Also reported guttering leaking and water pouring down the side of the building when it rained. Once again case closed and guttering still leaking. All this without the matter of storm damage to the roof twice and not being done for months resulting in the owner sustaining damage to his apartment

If you are buying a property I would avoid any that are managed by First Purt. Appalling company.

I have posted two other reviews here so if you want to know my thoughts on First Port you can read them

My Experience with first port after having them as a factor for roughly a year has been shocking one of you are looking for a property management company that don’t actually manage your property at all you’ve found the right one 👍

My example is that I’ve spent more months this year with missing roof slates (around 7 months with two claims in the same year and an internal damage claim pending ) causing internal damage to my property than I have with a fully functioning roof .

The roof above my flat has been damaged for 2 months now and the amount of water coming in has caused severe damage to my home and I currently have a large hole in my bathroom roof because of this. I’m in glasgow and it rains a lot so my home continues to get damaged and still nothing is happening to get this fixed. Shocking company who I feel don’t really care about their residents.

i have been a resident at Homeross house in Edinburgh for 19 years, Wesley our house manager has been here over 6 years and i must say he is very professional in his role, his building management skills are excellent he is very approachable, friendly and goes beyond the line of duty in caring for the residents , we also wish every success to Eric who has recently joined the management team.

MY NAME IS NORMAN KEARNS AND I HAVE BEEN AT HOMEROSS HOUSE FOR EIGHT AND HALF YEARS AND WE HAVE ONE OF THE BEST MANAGERS AT OUR DEVELOPMENT , WESLEY, IS VERY FRIENDLY, APPROACHABLE , AND HE GOES ABOVE AND BEYOND TO SOLVE ANY PROBLEMS YOU MAY HAVE, HE,S OUTSTANDING, A TEMPLATE FOR OTHER MANAGERS TO COPY , AND ALSO ERIC WHO HAS RECENTLY JOIN US IS RAPIDLY LEARNING THE TEACHINGS OF WESLEYS WAYS, I THANK FIRST PORT FOR SENDING US THE BEST QUALITY OUTSTANDING MANAGERS IN MY EXPERIENCE.

Development manager Kerry at Morningside veiw edin goes above and beyond extremely efficient and friendly

Neglect duties as factors, rubbish blowing about in kids park for over a month. Poor company to deal with, poor standards, poor customer service

I stayed at Caiystane Court in Edinburgh (EH13 9AA) for six days last week. It's a well-managed site with friendly residents, and the development manager has done a great job.

Recently moved in to a FirstPort managed property in Bishopbriggs and
Immediately needed some assistance in getting access to locked cupboards for virgin media installation. Intercom fault quickly rectified the next day.
Spare keys/fobs ordered.
Thanks to Julie

REPLACEMENT OF EXISTING STORAGE HEATERS.

It was proposed to replace the existing storage heaters which are about 23 years old with new modern heaters. The old heaters used off-peak electricity. It came to a point in time where off-peak electricity was no longer available to us. The heaters were deprived of their advantage which was off-peak electricity and left with their disadvantages which were no thermostatic control and no programmer. The disadvantages meant that corridors were heated in the early hours of the morning when no person was present to benefit from this. Empty spaces were being heated every day.

FirstPort, acting as the Factor, took steps to replace the heaters with modern heaters with thermostats and programmers. Under advice from a manufacturer's sales representative, it was decided to replace every existing heater with a new heater according to their rules of thumb. This resulted in a plan to buy and install twice as many heaters as were required.

The professional design approach requires that a calculation is done to determine the requirements for heat. The number and heat output of heaters is based on the calculated values. This means that it is possible to keep the number of new heaters to the minimum required and by doing so minimise the cost of buying and installing the new heaters. FirstPort’s proposed plan did not achieve this.

Additional factors were that expensive heaters were recommended by the manufacturer's sales representative when more cost-effective heaters were available. Wi-Fi was recommended, to be installed in the corridors at a further cost. This cost also could be avoided.

The lessons to be learned from this example is that FisrtPort do not necessarily apply the correct method. This may be because people employed by FirstPort may lack the knowledge and experience to do so. The result of this may be excessive cost which is imposed on the Proprietors and Owners who may not be aware of the issues.

The WORST company I have ever had to contact, and that is saying something. I live in rented accommodation which isn’t cheap. Numerous tenants and an estate agents have request the intercom be fixed as there is no way of contacting residents from the entrance of the building.

The company were told about the issue 6 MONTHS AGO. But made up some pathetic excuse that parts are “hard” to get hold of. When we first moved in, the lift was also broken which took them 3 months to fix.

The broken intercom has forced delivery drivers to leave parcels outside the front of the building, which we have now had stolen, as the drivers cannot get hold of us. If you wish to buy a property and this is the management company, think again. Useless, time wasters. If I could give 0 stars I would.