Mark Patmore will act like your friend until he gets your 1 month's deposit and your signature on a lease. Beware. My friends and I rented from him for our senior year, meant to be a fun but also, scary year in that we would be graduating and searching for jobs.
Mark never responded to emails. He would answer the phone and then lecture us for 20 minutes to something irrelevant to our initial request. We had lightbulbs that weren't working when we moved in that, 12 months later, are still burned out. On our MOVE IN sheet, yes, the sheet filled out when we moved in 12 months ago, we reported these issues and still they are not fixed. Not a big deal for us as far as using these lightbulbs... But we are being charged $10 a lightbulb at move out now for the replacements.
We are looking into the legality of other terms of Mark's move out checklist. He requires us to steam clean carpets (not on the lease) but we cannot use our own steam cleaner, we must use a steam cleaner from a specific company with which he has a partnership. My mother has a cleaner we could use for free, but Mark does not allow this because I assume he makes money from the steam cleaner company for sending his tenants there. This is not only not stated in the lease, but this requirement does not seem legal.
Mark would not tell us the paint color he uses because he wants to make money on the $65/hour cleaning fee he has put in place (not on the lease). If we make it worse by painting, that's on us. Allow us the opportunity to fix small mistakes—don't flat out deny us the opportunity.
Mark is extremely condescending. His attitude makes it clear that he believes himself to be above his tenants because we are all young college kids. He lectures us like children. The kicker was, once when I called him, I said "I just really need the money and want to do everything I can to get my deposit back." Before I even finished my sentence, Mark started interrupting "whoa whoa whoa. Stop right there, let me tell you one thing. It is not your deposit, it is MY deposit."
Our friends who moved out of the unit next door got only $800 of their $2400 deposit back. They are still waiting, almost 60 days later. Under NC law, a landlord must return a deposit within 30 days unless repairs are still being done that could require more money of the deposit. This is not the case because new tenants moved in less than a week after they moved out—it has been almost 2 months since they moved out.
Don't rent from him. Rent is EXPENSIVE and it's not worth it—move out will be hell for you. This is just my first step to action. I will not be taken advantage of. Mark drives a Porsche and has a servant living on his property. He can afford all of this because he NEVER has to pay for any maintenance to any properties—he just keeps whatever he wants of the deposit. Legal action will be taken if we don't get what we deserve from this deposit, or if we have to wait forever to get this deposit back.
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