Read the comments below and steer clear of this place. Terrible business practices and questionable ethics. There is zero transparency regarding costs or payments, and their invoicing system is absolutely appalling. Cancelling with them is an unnecessarily complicated process, and they conveniently add random charges throughout your contract. I strongly advise avoiding this place at all costs
This is probably the worst experience I've had with any company. The salesperson for Spaces, Sharon Bradley, is without doubt the most unprofessional person I've had the displeasure to deal with. After 18 months of working in a spare room, due to COVID, I was excited to move into a proper co working space and continue to grow my small business. I picked a desk which was reserved for me, in the far corner next to the window and nobody sat behind me. After turning up for the first day I was shown to a desk in the middle of the office sitting back to back with someone else. When I asked what happened to the desk i reserved I was just constantly told I was wrong and it was my fault for picking the wrong desk. After multiple times of asking to speak to Sharon's manager she just completed ghosted me and left it to Charlie and Fiona (lovely people who are constantly let down by the shocking people they work with and for). I got the correct desk 6 weeks later after not being able to use the other desk, I was obviously still charged though, and was back to working in my spare room in the meantime. I handed in my notice on my 6 month contract immediately, at which point all of a sudden everyone wanted to help me and had constant calls from their head office grilling me about why I was leaving so soon. As soon as they knew I wouldn't change my mind they went back to ghosting me. Its the 19th of June, I left on the 30th of April and after chasing multiple times I still haven't got my deposit back. Avoid these guys like the plague, there's so many great co working spaces in Leeds like Park House and Department which are newer, cleaner, have more facilities and cost less. The fact Sharon Bradley is on here leaving reviews herself is laughable, it's probably due to the fact that their occupancy rate is through the floor and everyone who leaves has had experiences like my own.
Signing up to this office space was probably the worst decision I have made in my career so far. My journey with Spaces started with a tour around the office spaces. Adam who was supposed to be showing me around was 35 minutes late (first of many red flags that I didn't spot), when he arrived he showed me around and then took me to a meeting room to discuss my options. He was very flaky when I asked him about prices, they seemed to change every time I asked him. When he found out my top budget he showed me a small one person office which I agreed was perfect. I went home and deliberated for a few days and then decided to go for it, I double checked with Adam the price twice & then he sent me through the contract. We had agreed in person that a rolling contract was what I wanted but he had sneakily sent through a 6 month contract hoping I wouldn't notice, however I did notice so I asked him to change it which he did. After that had come through I signed the contract and then straight away received my first invoice, upon checking the amount for the first invoice I was shocked as it was much more money than what I had signed for, little did I know that they had hidden away things such as a 2 part office retainer fee, a joining fee in the small print. Then when I double checked again I saw that actually the office price that Adam confirmed for me was without VAT, again, very sneaky as he knew what my top budget was and I told him that when I spoke about my budget I was including any VAT charges. When I queried with him he told me it was out of his hands and as I had signed I had to pay, as this was within minutes of signing I was sure there would be some break clause or cooling off period that meant I could cancel & walk away. Boy was I wrong, it took me a total of 3 months to cancel the office. This three months consisted of constant invoices & late payment fees, emails that threatened debt collection & debt agencies. As hard as I tried you can't get contact of anyone within Spaces, there are no numbers listed, their customer service team is appalling, and the team at Park Row just constantly told me it was out of their hands. When I finally got through to the only helpful advisor (Francesca) she helped me cancel my contract (which I couldn't do online as their online portal wouldn't allow me to log in, something else they didn't care about) and then removed the excess charges as I wasn't just charged for the first month, I got charged for x2 months despite cancelling within the first day via email. I then had to pay all of the office deposit fees upfront in order to get them refunded in 30 days, despite me never even collecting the keys to the office. I waited for my retainer back and to my surprise I only received part of the amount as they had kindly charged me £72 for a cleaning fee, again like I said, I had never even collected the keys so this frustrated me but didn't surprise me as this company will do anything to take your money. It then took me a further 2 weeks to get in contact with someone to claim this back, constantly being told I was going to get called back, which I never did. In the end I had to get my assistant to call as well as me in order to get through to someone. I finally received the money back after explaining the history of my account about 100 times & receiving about 100 automated emails. The moral to this story is, Spaces is an international company that don't care about anything other than taking your money & making it very very hard to get back. They pray on people like me, first time business owners who they can take advantage of to the full. Awful place and I am so happy to see the end of it.
