Incomptent Property Manager story

I have a great little story about a particularly inept property manager whose actions/inaction has cost me a lot of time and money...

Situation

After months of tenant paying late, causing damage, failing to report minor maintenance issues (that later turned into major maintenance issues), avoiding the PM, neglecting the grounds and pool, causing general mischief and finally stopping paying rent, my PM manages to secure a hearing with the Tribunal.

The notice is sent to the tenant who, at the eleventh hour send the PM a hand written letter claiming that she could not make the tribunal hearing because she was attending her Father's funeral. The tenant asks the PM to take this letter to the Tribunal and present it on her behalf.

Hearing date. The PM duly delivers the tenant's letter, and, based on the claims made in the letter, the tenant receives a reprieve from the Tribunal, and is allowed to stay on in the house on the proviso that they pay all back rent.

Two days later, the tenant's Father out shines Jesus Christ himself, and miraculously returns from the dead !! The claims, as I suspected, were false.

Following this little episode, and an even worse performance on two other properties (the subject of other posts later on), the PM was sacked, and a new one appointed (she's much better).

Anyway, a couple of weeks later, the tenant pays all back rent, and a couple of months in advance. A couple more months go by and the due date arrives for her next payment which the tenant fails to make. Tenant now goes into hiding and refuses to answer any calls or letters from the PM. The new PM now takes action and applies to the Tribunal again. Hearing was today, and thankfully, we were granted vacant posession from Monday midnight.

It ain't over yet 'though. I have no doubt the tenant will refuse to vacate, meaning we will need to apply for a warrant (another $121), and have the Sherrif's office serve the warrant. At the same time, the locksmiths will need to move in. Joy o joy!! Don't I just love my original PM now for setting me up with such a dud tenant and then helping her to stay in the house at my expense!!

And then we need to fix the holes in the wall, and repaint, and fix the pool (again), and clean, and then make an insurance claim, and and and.

O God, please let it all end.


My Gripe?

Well, I have a few, but the main one is that I believe that the PM did the wrong thing by me by representing the tenant at the tribunal. Did the PM's actions - presenting the tenant's letter to the Tribunal - construe representing the tenant? Was she obligated to present the letter? In my mind, her actions did amount to representing the tenant ahead of my interests, and directly resulted in substantial loss on my behalf.

Pete
 
Pete,

Good luck sorting out the mess - I'd say that the PM should have put your interests first, though with a father who can come back from the dead I can understand them becoming a little religious towards the tenant.

If you don't mind the questions

- on which basis did you originally pick the first PM?
- what changed with the first PM or was their performance consistently bad?
- what made you stay with the first PM for so long?
- what was the straw that broke the camel's back & made you change PMs?

We've had a few threads going about the cost of PMing & whether you need them in the first place & your answers could help a lot of people thinking about how to choose a PM.

No judgements being applied :)

Cheers,

Aceyducey
 
- on which basis did you originally pick the first PM?

1. First PM picked based on two things. First, they were my PM when I was a tenant a wile back. They were thorough during selection, regular on inspections, and treated tenants well. One of the things I wanted in a PM was for them to treat the tenants with respect. Second reason we went with the PM was that we have a large 9BR house that we rent to students. At the time, most PMs had gotten out of the student market, and this one had picked up virtually all of the business. At the time, they had a 100% occupancy rate with their student rentals, and the PM did very well in the interview I conducted with her when I was deciding on my PM.


- what changed with the first PM or was their performance consistently bad?

2. Performance was good for a while, but as the PM's work load increased, she was not able to handle the additional pressure. When things were running smoothly, she was just fine, but the more difficult situations threw her off. She began taking stress leave and rapidly declined. I spoke to her supervisor to let her know that I thought she needed some help, but as things had gotten so bad (at that stage, we had 11 tenancies with the PM), I decided to dump and run before we saw any action on the part of the rentals Department Manager.

- what made you stay with the first PM for so long?

3. For a while, our sense of good nature and a belief that she could sort out the issues as she kept telling us she would. In the end, sheer stupidity.

- what was the straw that broke the camel's back & made you change PMs?

4. A combination of factors. First, and main one was the situation I outlined in the story - the PM representing the tenant's interests at my Tribunal hearing. Second, the situation I will outline in a second story - just as troubling and expensive for us that occured at exactly the same time. Basically with that one, we had a bad tenant who failed to pay. Got a Tribunal decision in our favour for vacant posession. Went to take posession and found squatters in the property!!. PM then advised that we should sign them up on a lease. Not happy with that, issued a notice to vacate. Finally got rid of the squatters. Place left in a mess with 17 weeks no rent. fortunateley that property is now re-let with a good tenant, and I should get my insurance cheque for most of my losses next week. Third factor (again, at the same time as the other disasters) was that the PM failed to fill all 9 student rooms prior to the Uni year kicking off. I thought this was abysmal given the fact that our house is generally considered by students and the Uni to be one of the best student digs in town, and we had previously had to turn away large numbers of applicants. The PM was in major decline at the critical time two-three weeks prior to Uni starting, and was often not available to show the rooms. As a result, we still have two vacancies.

On the up side, I learnt some pretty valuable lessons, and my insurance will cover a significant part of our losses. The new PM is a multi award winning specialist PM. So far, so good with them (although they are finding it tough to let the student rooms part way through the semester).

Pete
 
Peter,

Thanks - a great reply!

This will be really helpful for people.

So it was the old "overload'em til they drop" problem with your PM.

I must admit, I do try to check PMs for no. properties managed per staff member, but this is a really hard figure to get without physically visiting the agent & counting heads :)

Cheers,

Aceyducey
 
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