Property Manager Terminates Themselves After Being Questioned???

Hi Guys,

I am in a situation where a property manager has elected to terminate their management agreement with me on two properties they've been looking after for me over the past 12 months. This comes after many problems that I had discovered came to the surface and I put a little pressure on them to rectify and resolve for new tenants that have recently moved in.

It seems the agent is refusing to carry out their duties on what is very simple tasks and now that I'm putting them under the spot light with their employer, the acting agent has decided to send me a termination letter and now refusing to manage my properties at all.

I've had the tenants calling me directly (sourcing my number from their neighbours) and suggesting that the agents will not and have not responded to any of their requests and partially talking towards them in a demeaning manner leaving the tenant rather irrate. There may or may not be any major problems and all I've asked is that the property managers help resolve the tenants issue, which may or may not be from the previous tenants.

Can a managing agent just up and leave their responsibilities when the going gets a little tough? They've had a VERY easy run without too many problems until this point.

I'm a little gob smacked here, since I ourchaee four properties through them in the past 12 months and now have them not wanting to deal with me because I have had to give them a nudge and question a few of their decisions with the previous tenants whom were their personal friends who left the property damaged and with errors on leases that have cost me a few thousand dollars. They also continue to avoids providing me with any documentation whatsoever to justify any of their actons or the maintenence costs on the property including Police reports where the house was maliciously damaged and I was not notified hoping this wouldn't be noticed. I live 5hrs away so it makes things hard to manage myself hence I pay $30 per week for the property manager's to do their jobs and hopefully do them well.

Oh... I can go on and on...

Is what they're doing fair or am I sounding like a whinging *****? I'm feeling a little screwed over at the moment.
 
Can a managing agent just up and leave their responsibilities when the going gets a little tough? They've had a VERY easy run without too many problems until this point.

Yes, they can! BUT why would you want them to continue managing your properties anyway? Appoint a new PM and move on.

You may wish to have a word with the Principal of the Agency, especially if you bought 4 properties through them. He might want to make things right if he feels that he's going to miss out on commissions. If all else fails, you can take them to Tribunal.

One lesson to learn, which you've now learnt the hard way, is that there are some agents that are great to buy from, some that are great to manage properties, and some are fantastic at selling. Rarely do you find all three in the same agency!
 
Dear Monopoly Man

There is value to take the time to choose the right PM agency for you. This situation sounds most disappointing - as an investor myself it is important for my PMs who manage our IPs out of town to be reliable and most importantly customer focused. Some things to consider when interviewing prospective PMs include:
* How many properties are allocated per PM
* Does the agency have commitment to offer focused property management services where sales are not the core focus? - is there balanced infrastructure in the agency to offer a quality PM service
* Feedback from clients
* Response time to your initial inquiries about services

Some thought starters...
 
If you list the areas involved perhaps someone can recommend your new PM to you :)

Like all business arrangements you have to check that the other side is doing their job, check your statements, drive buy the IPs, manage the manager until you are happy that all is OK then back off a bit.
 
Can a managing agent just up and leave their responsibilities when the going gets a little tough? They've had a VERY easy run without too many problems until this point.
Yes.

Is what they're doing fair or am I sounding like a whinging *****? I'm feeling a little screwed over at the moment.
You are right to be annoyed.

As skater mentioned, have a word to the Principal of the Agency. One simple thing you can do is outline what happened, why its wrong and what you would like done about it. Just a warning that it is likely that no action will be taken about your complaint. Still, it's worth putting something in writing.

The main thing is to find a new PM and appoint them as soon as you can. But you also need to find a decent one.

You could also consider lodging a complaint against the agency with the relevant authority. If you are right, what they have done is very serious.
 
I was sacked too. They kicked out a tenant because she wasn't A grade (I didn't realise they were always chasing her for the rent. But then they made 5 errors. I picked them up and asked them to fix which they did. Then they refunded me money and said as I couldn't trust them anymore, I could leave within the day. I emailed the principal and he said he only wanted A grade landlords.

I left and got a better agency that was 2% cheaper. They still send me advertising emails.

If you are in Townsville, Virgo Patterson has been pretty good for me.

Go elsewhere and get better service. It's your money, your risk and you need to work with people who will treat it like their own.
 
We were sacked last year as well and had been with an agency for 8 years with several properties.
Things had gone downhill since the new principal's daughter took over as property manager and she started calling me asking for instructions on the most minor of things , being overly soft on tenants and always taking the tenants side, it seemed she was working for them not me.
She lost the plot totally when I told her that she was supposedly a property manager, MANAGE.
I imagined her going and having a cry on daddys lap. :D

I honestly think they expected me to grovel back to them because they seemed surprised that I had a new manager lined up within the hour (I had been looking) and then became quite vindictive towards the new firm making it difficult getting keys, spares and paperwork.

Best thing they have done in a while was sack me and I thank them for it as my work load and stress level has dropped considerably.

It was suggested by our current PM that we could drag them through office of fair trading to get the last few years of management fees back on the grounds that many of the inspection reports were lacking in information, many of the exit and entry reports were the same, photo's were not date stamped and old ones had been used on newer reports, no copies of breaches that had supposedly been issued etc etc.
Thinking about it for ***** and giggles more than anything else.
 
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