I contacted a property management company in response to an add for a house to rent. The rental looked good but needed some work. I was told that there was stiff competition for the rental.
So, to beat out the competition, I pre-paid six months rent (which came to a grand total of $12,550.00 with security deposit). I was told that the work that needed to be done would be finished in 5 days.
Needless to say, the work was far from complete on the sixth day.in fact, after 17 days, I had enough. I secured another rental and told the property management company that I was backing out of the deal because the house wasn't anywhere near ready.
I figured it would take something like 5 days to get my money back. Well, after contacting the company over and over again all-the-while getting one line and one lie after another, I discover that THEY HAD SPENT ALL MY MONEY AND DIDN'T HAVE ANY TO GIVE BACK TO ME!!!
I keep getting fishy commitments on when they'll be able to get me at least some money back.
Last night, without their knowledge, I took a 2 hour road trip to visit the owner of the house. It was risky but the risk paid off. It turns out the property management company has not passed on even one dollar of my $12,550.00 to the owner. To boot, they gave fake documentation to the owner showing that the monthly rent was lower than what I had agreed to pay and with a lower security deposit.
In a nutshell, the property management company had $12,550.00 of my money and, they had planned on only passing a portion on to the owner (over and above their 10% management fee). All told, excluding their 10% fee, they would have pocketed an additional $2,050.00 if I had agreed to stay for six months. As it stands at the moment, I'm out $12,550.00 with very little chance of recovery, the owner has had to come out of pocket a few thousand dollars to fix up the house and still doesn't have a tenant and the property management company is sitting fat, dumb and happy.
Can you all help me???
Richard
Big Bear Lake, California
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