Alliance Residential called us and begged us to come help them at a Forest Park, GA Apartment Complex. We are a young business without any real capital and we had 3 painters, 2 carpenters and 3 cleaning people at their complex for 3 months and never got paid. We provided almost all of the materials and paint. We started in late August and stopped work before Christmas. They even referred us to other properties within Alliance.
We were given every run around and excuse in the book. The property manager was replaced and we were told everything was her fault. We were then told that the corporate office switched to a new accounting software and everything was really backed up. Now they just say that the property has no money and they can't pay until it is authorized. You can't talk to anyone at corporate but vendor services that have no authority. We missed the deadline to put a lien on the property and I have been told that liens are useless unless they are selling the property or refinancing.
We have talked to a couple attorneys but the costs would be many thousands of dollars to get a judgement and then that still would not make them pay us. This is one of the largest owners and managers of multi-family housing in the country. There are press releases about their donations of thousands and thousands of dollars. When they contract with a Vendor for software or services there is a press release because they are such a big client.
They would not accept this from their tenants. I as a small business owner cannot tell my vendors and clients that while I am making plenty of money a couple of my customers are not paying me so I am not going to pay you until they do. How can they get away with this over and over?
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